Arsenic Archives - Amazing Health Advances

How Risky Is the Arsenic in Rice?

AHA Publisher — Wed, 13 Jan 2021 08:00:41 +0000

Michael Greger M.D. FACLM via NutritionFacts – Getting rice down to the so-called safe water limit for arsenic would still allow for roughly 500 times greater cancer risk than is normally considered acceptable. Given the level of arsenic in rice, how could we figure out how much rice is too much? There are no U.S. standards for arsenic in rice, even though “food sources are the main source of exposure.” There are limits on arsenic in apple juice and tap water, though. To calculate those, experts must have sat down, determined out how much arsenic a day was too much—too risky—then figured people typically drink about four to eight cups of water a day, and set the limits that way, right? Okay, well, can’t we just use their how-much-arsenic-a-day-is-too-much-arsenic-a-day number, and, based on the average arsenic content in rice, figure out how-much-rice-a-day-is-too-much-rice? I discuss this in my video How Risky Is the Arsenic in Rice?. “The allowable level established by the FDA for arsenic in bottled water is 10 ppb,” assuming people might drink a liter a day. So, based on that daily 10 ppb limit, how much rice is that? “Each 1 g increase in rice intake was associated with a 1% increase in urinary total arsenic, such that eating 0.56 cups [a little over a half cup] of cooked rice was considered comparable with drinking 1 L/d,” one liter per day, of that maximally contaminated water. Well, if you can eat a half cup a day, why does Consumer Reports suggest eating just a few servings of rice a week? You could eat nearly a serving every day and still stay within the daily arsenic limits set for drinking water. Well, Consumer Reports felt the 10 ppb water standard was too lax, so, it went with the “most protective standard in the country,” at 5 ppb. Guess where it came from? New Jersey. Good for New Jersey! So, by using 5 ppb instead of 10 ppb in the calculation, you can see how Consumer Reports got to its only-a-few-servings-of-rice-a-week recommendation. Presumably, that’s based on average arsenic levels in rice. If you choose a lower-arsenic rice, one with only half the level of arsenic, can you have four servings a week instead of two? And, if you boil rice like pasta and drain off the excess water, doesn’t that also cut levels in half? If so, then you are up to about eight servings a week. Based on the water standard, apparently, you could still safely eat a serving of rice a day if you choose the right rice and cook it right. I assumed the water limit is ultra-conservative since people are expected to drink water every day of their lives, whereas most people don’t eat rice every day, seven days a week. I made that assumption, but I was wrong. It turns out the opposite is true. All this time, I had been assuming the current drinking guideline exposure would be safe, which in terms of carcinogens, is usually “1 in a million chances of getting cancer over a lifetime.” I’ve mentioned this before. It’s how cancer-causing substances are typically regulated. If a company wants to release some new chemical, it has to show that it doesn’t cause more than one in a million excess cancer cases. Of course, there are 300 million people in this country, so that one-in-a-million doesn’t make the 300 extra families who have to deal with cancer feel any better, but that’s just the kind of agreed upon “acceptable risk.” The problem, according to the National Research Council, is that with the current federal drinking water standard for arsenic of 10 μg/L, we are not talking about an excess cancer risk of 1 in a million people, but as high as 1 case in 300 people. Those 300 extra cases of cancer just turned into a million more cases? A million more families dealing with a cancer diagnosis? “This is 3000 times higher than a commonly accepted cancer risk for an environmental carcinogen of 1 case in 1 000 000 people.” If we were to use the normally accepted 1 in a million odds of cancer risk, the water standard would have to be 500 times lower, .02 instead of 10. Even the New Jersey standard is 250 times too high. “While this is a rather drastic difference… it underlines just how little precaution is instilled in the current guidelines.” Hold on. So why isn’t the water standard .02 instead of 10? Because that “would be nearly impossible to implement” as we just don’t have the technology to get arsenic levels in water that low. The technologically feasible level has been estimated at 3. Okay, so why is the limit 10 and not 3? The decision to use a threshold of 10 instead of 3 was “mainly a budgetary decision.” A threshold of three would cost a lot of money. So, the current water “safety” limit “is more motivated by politics than by technology.” Nobody wants to be told they have toxic tap water. If they did, they might demand better water treatment and that would be expensive. “As a result, many people drink water at levels very close to the current guideline… and may not be aware that they are exposed to an increased risk of cancer.” Even worse, millions of Americans drink water exceeding the legal limit, as you can see at 5:10 in my video. But, even the people living in areas that meet the legal limit “must understand that current arsenic guidelines are only marginally protective.” Perhaps we should tell people who drink water—i.e., everyone—“that current arsenic regulations are a cost-benefit compromise and that, based on usual health risk paradigms, the standards should be much lower… People must be made aware that regulatory targets for arsenic should be as close to zero as possible,” and, when it comes to water, we should aim for the reachable limit of 3. What does this mean for rice, though? Well, first of all, so much for just trying to get rice down to the so-called safe water limit, since that “already exceeds standard [carcinogen] risks and is based on feasibility and cost-benefit compromises,” which “allows for a roughly 500 times higher risk of cancer” than is normally considered acceptable. So, “while authorities ponder when and how they will regulate arsenic concentration in rice,” perhaps we should “curtail or strongly limit our consumption of rice.” To read the original article click here. For more articles from Dr. Greger click here.

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How to Cook Rice to Lower Arsenic Levels

AHA Publisher — Tue, 29 Dec 2020 08:00:06 +0000

Michael Greger M.D. FACLM via Nutrition Facts – Boiling rice like pasta reduces arsenic levels, but how much nutrition is lost? Cooking rice in a high water-to-rice ratio reduces toxic arsenic content, which I discuss in my video How to Cook Rice to Lower Arsenic Levels. What exactly does that mean? Well, as you can see at 0:16 in my video, if you boil rice like pasta and then drain off the water at the end, you can drop arsenic levels in half—50 to 60 percent of the arsenic gets poured down the drain—whereas the typical way we make rice, boiling off the water in a rice cooker or pot, for example, doesn’t help. In fact, it may even make things worse if the water you’re using to cook the rice has arsenic in it, too, which is a problem that exists for about three million Americans, as about 8 percent of public water supplies exceed the current legal arsenic limits. “Cooking rice in excess water”—and then discarding the excess water—“efficiently reduces the amount of inorganic As [that is, toxic arsenic] in the cooked rice,” but how much nutrition are you pouring down the drain when you do pour off the excess water? “Unpolished brown rice naturally contains vitamins and minerals that are lost when the bran layer and germ are removed to make white rice. To compensate, since the 1940s polished white and parboiled rice sold in the United States is often enriched”—that is, white rice has had vitamins and minerals sprayed on it to so it’s “enriched” and “fortified.” That’s why cooking instructions for enriched white rice specifically say you shouldn’t rinse it and you should cook it in a minimal amount of water. In other words, you should do the opposite of what you’d do to get rid of some of the arsenic. But brown rice has the nutrients inside, not just sprayed on. “Rinsing [white] rice,” by putting it in a colander under running water, for example, “removes much of the enriched vitamins sprayed onto the rice grain surface during manufacture,” removing most of the B-vitamins. But, “rinsing had almost no effect on vitamins in whole grain brown rice”—because brown rice has got the nutrition inside. It’s the same with iron: Rinsing white rice reduces iron levels by about three-fourths, but the iron in brown rice is actually in it, so rinsing only reduces the iron concentration in brown rice by about 10 percent. Rinsing didn’t seem to affect the arsenic levels, so why bother? Well, if you really wash the rice, for example, agitating the uncooked rice in water, rinsing, and repeating for three minutes, you may be able to remove about 10 percent of the arsenic. So, one research team recommends washing rice as well as boiling it in excess water, but I don’t know if the 10 percent is worth the extra time it takes to wash the rice. However, as we discussed, boiling rice like pasta and then draining off the excess water does really cut way down on the arsenic, and, while that cooking method also takes a whack at the nutrition in white rice, the nutrient loss in brown rice is “significantly less,” as it is not so much enriched as it is rich in nutrition in the first place. “Cooking brown rice in large amounts of excess water reduces the toxic arsenic by almost 60% and only reduces the iron content by 5%. It reduces the vitamin content of brown rice by about half,” however. You can see a graph of what I’m talking about at 3:18 in my video. A quick rinse of brown rice before you cook it doesn’t lower arsenic levels, but boiling it and draining off the excess water, instead of cooking to dry, drops arsenic levels by 40 percent. That was using about a ratio of 6 parts water to 1 part rice. What if you use even more water, boiling at 10-to-1 water-to-rice ratio? You get a 60 percent drop in arsenic levels. With white rice, you can rinse off a little arsenic, but after cooking, you end up with similar final drops in arsenic content, but the iron gets wiped out in white rice by rinsing and cooking, whereas the iron in brown rice stays strong. There are similar decrements in the B vitamins with cooking for brown and unrinsed white rice, but once you rinse white rice, the B vitamins are mostly gone before they even make it into the pot. What about percolating rice? Well, we know that regular rice cooking doesn’t help reduce arsenic levels, but boiling then draining rice like pasta does, while steaming doesn’t do much. What about percolating rice as a radical rethink to optimize arsenic removal? Researchers tried two types of percolating technology: One was a mad scientist-type lab set-up, and the other was just a regular off-the-shelf coffee percolator. Instead of putting in coffee, they put rice and percolated 20 minutes for white and 30 for brown. The result? As you can see at 4:39 in my video, they got about a 60 percent drop in arsenic levels using a 12-to-1 water-to-rice ratio. Raw brown rice started out at about double the arsenic levels of raw white rice, but, after cooking with enough excess water and draining, they end up much closer. Though, a 60 percent drop in arsenic levels by percolating at a 12-to-1 ratio was about what we got boiling at just 10-to-1. So, I don’t see a reason to buy a percolator. But, what does that 60 percent drop really mean? By boiling and draining a daily serving of rice, we could cut excess cancer risk more than half from about 165 times the acceptable cancer risk to only about…66 times the acceptable risk. To read the original article click here. For more articles from Dr. Greger click here.

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Cancer Risk from Arsenic in Rice and Seaweed

AHA Publisher — Fri, 11 Dec 2020 08:00:38 +0000

Michael Greger M.D. FACLM via Nutrition Facts – A daily half-cup of cooked rice may carry a hundred times the acceptable cancer risk of arsenic. What about seaweed from the coast of Maine? “At one point during the reign of King Cotton, farmers in the south central United States controlledboll weevils with arsenic-based pesticides, and residual arsenic still contaminates the soil.” Different plants have different reactions to arsenic exposure. Tomatoes, for example, don’t seem to accumulate much arsenic, but rice plants are really good at sucking it out of the ground—so much so that rice can be used for “arsenic phytoremediation,” meaning you can plant rice on contaminated land as a way to clear arsenic from the soil. Of course, you’re then supposed to throw the rice—and the arsenic—away. But in the South, where 80 percent of U.S. rice is grown, we instead feed it to people. As you can see at 0:52 in my video Cancer Risk from Arsenic in Rice and Seaweed, national surveys have shown that most arsenic exposure has been measured coming from the meat in our diet, rather than from grains, with most from fish and other seafood. Well, given that seafood is contributing 90 percent of our arsenic exposure from food, why are we even talking about the 4 percent from rice? The arsenic compounds in seafood are mainly organic—used here as a chemistry term having nothing to do with pesticides. Because of the way our body can deal with organic arsenic compounds, “they have historically been viewed as harmless.” Recently, there have been some questions about that assumption, but there’s no question about the toxicity of inorganic arsenic, which you get more of from rice. As you can see at 1:43 in my video, rice contains more of the toxic inorganic arsenic than does seafood, with one exception: Hijiki, an edible seaweed, is a hundred times more contaminated than rice, leading some researchers to refer to it as the “so-called edible hijiki seaweed.” Governments have started to agree. In 2001, the Canadian government advised the public not to eat hijiki, followed by the United Kingdom, the European Commission, Australia, and New Zealand. The Hong Kong Centre for Food Safety advised the public not to eat hijiki and banned imports and sales of it. Japan, where there is actually a hijiki industry, just advised moderation. What about seaweed from the coast of Maine—domestic, commercially harvested seaweed from New England? Thankfully, only one type, a type of kelp, had significant levels of arsenic. But, it would take more than a teaspoon to exceed the provisional daily limit for arsenic, and, at that point, you’d be exceeding the upper daily limit for iodine by about 3,000 percent, which is ten times more than reported in a life-threatening case report attributed to a kelp supplement. I recommend avoiding hijiki due to its excess arsenic content and avoiding kelp due to its excess iodine content, but all other seaweeds should be fine, as long as you don’t eat them with too much rice. In the report mentioned earlier where we learned that rice has more of the toxic inorganic arsenic than fish, we can see that there are 88.7 micrograms of inorganic arsenic per kilogram of raw white rice. What does that mean? That’s only 88.7 parts per billion, which is like 88.7 drops of arsenic in an Olympic-size swimming pool of rice. How much cancer risk are we talking about? To put it into context, the “usual level of acceptable risk for carcinogens” is one extra cancer case per million. That’s how we typically regulate cancer-causing substances. If a chemical company wants to release a new chemical, we want them to show that it doesn’t cause more than one in a million excess cancer cases. The problem with arsenic in rice is that the excess cancer risk associated with eating just about a half cup of cooked rice a day could be closer to one in ten thousand, not one in a million, as you can see at 4:07 in my video. That’s a hundred times the acceptable cancer risk. The FDA has calculated that one serving a day of the most common rice, long grain white, would cause not 1 in a million extra cancer cases, but 136 in a million. And that’s just the cancer effects of arsenic. What about all the non-cancer effects? The FDA acknowledges that, in addition to cancer, the toxic arsenic found in rice “has been associated with many non-cancer effects, including ischemic heart disease, diabetes, skin lesions, renal [kidney] disease, hypertension, and stroke.” Why, then, did the FDA only calculate the cancer risks of arsenic? “Assessing all the risks associated with inorganic arsenic would take considerable time and resources and would delay taking any needed action to protect public health” from the risks of rice. “Although physicians can help patients reduce their dietary arsenic exposure, regulatory agencies, food producers, and legislative bodies have the most important roles” in terms of public health-scale changes. “Arsenic content in U.S.-grown rice has been relatively constant throughout the last 30 years,” which is a bad thing. “Where grain arsenic concentration is elevated due to ongoing contamination, the ideal scenario is to stop the contamination at the source.” Some toxic arsenic in foods is from natural contamination of the land, but soil contamination has also come from the dumping of arsenic-containing pesticides, as well as the use of arsenic-based drugs in poultry production and then the spreading of arsenic-laced chicken manure on the land. Regardless of why south central U.S. rice paddies are so contaminated, we shouldn’t be growing rice in arsenic-contaminated soil. What does the rice industry have to say for itself? Well, it started a website called ArsenicFacts. Its main argument appears to be that arsenic is everywhere, we’re all exposed to it every day, and it’s in most foods. But shouldn’t we try to cut down on the most concentrated sources? Isn’t that like saying look, diesel exhaust is everywhere, so why not suck on a tailpipe? The industry website quotes a nutrition professor saying, “All foods contain arsenic. So, if you eliminate arsenic from your diet, you will decrease your risk…and you’ll die of starvation.” That’s like Philip Morris saying that the only way to completely avoid secondhand smoke is to never breathe—but then you’ll asphyxiate, so you might as well just start smoking yourself. If you can’t avoid it, you might as well consume the most toxic source you can find?! That’s the same tack the poultry industry took. Arsenic and chicken? “No need to worry” because there’s a little arsenic everywhere. That’s why it’s okay the industry fed chickens arsenic-based drugs for 70 years. If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em. How can the rice industry get away with selling a product containing a hundred times the acceptable cancer risk? I cover that and so much more in my other videos on arsenic and rice, which also include concrete recommendations on how to mediate your risk. To read the original article click here. For more articles from Dr. Greger click here.

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Increased Global Mortality Linked to Arsenic Exposure in Rice-Based Diets

AHA Publisher — Fri, 07 Aug 2020 07:00:39 +0000

University of Manchester via EurekAlert – Rice is the most widely consumed staple food source for a large part of the world’s population. It has now been confirmed that rice can contribute to prolonged low-level arsenic exposure leading to thousands of avoidable premature deaths per year. Arsenic is well known acute poison, but it can also contribute to health problems, including cancers and cardiovascular diseases, if consumed at even relatively low concentrations over an extended period of time. Compared to other staple foods, rice tends to concentrate inorganic arsenic. Across the globe, over three billion people consume rice as their major staple and the inorganic arsenic in that rice has been estimated by some to give rise to over 50,000 avoidable premature deaths per year. A collaborating group of cross-Manchester researchers from The University of Manchester and The University of Salford have published new research exploring the relationship, in England and Wales, between the consumption of rice and cardiovascular diseases caused by arsenic exposure. Their findings, published in the journal Science of the Total Environment, shows that – once corrected for the major factors known to contribute to cardiovascular disease (for example obesity, smoking, age, lack of income, lack of education) there is a significant association between elevated cardiovascular mortality, recorded at a local authority level, and the consumption of inorganic arsenic bearing rice. Professor David Polya from The University of Manchester said: “The type of study undertaken, an ecological study, has many limitations, but is a relatively inexpensive way of determining if there is plausible link between increased consumption of inorganic arsenic bearing rice and increased risk of cardiovascular disease. Professor Polya from The University of Manchester said “The study suggests that the highest 25 % of rice consumers in England and Wales may plausibly be at greater risks of cardiovascular mortality due to inorganic arsenic exposure compared to the lowest 25 % of rice consumers. “The modelled increased risk is around 6 % (with a confidence interval for this figure of 2 % to 11 %). The increased risk modelled might also reflect in part a combination of the susceptibility, behaviours and treatment of those communities in England and Wales with relatively high rice diets.” While more robust types of study are required to confirm the result, given many of the beneficial effects otherwise of eating rice due to its high fibre content, the research team suggest that rather than avoid eating rice, people could consume rice varieties, such as basmati, and different types like polished rice (rather whole grain rice) which are known to typically have lower inorganic arsenic contents. Other positive behaviours would be to eat a balanced variety of staples, not just predominately rice. To read the original article click here.

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How Endocrine Disruptors Destroy Your Body + The Dirty Dozen to Avoid

AHA Publisher — Fri, 27 Sep 2019 02:35:15 +0000

Leah Zerbe, MS, NASM-CPT, NASM-CES via Dr. Axe – …[W]hen you’re looking at endocrine disruptors… even seriously tiny doses can lead to devastating health effects. But sometimes these health impacts don’t show up for years or even decades down the line after exposure. And unlike high-dose poisonings, it’s not as easy to make the cause-and-effect connection. BPA’s toxic effects are well-publicized. From the lining of canned foods to polycarbonate hard plastics to even the thermal coatings on cash register receipts, this is one of the world’s most proven bad news endocrine disruptors. BPA is linked to everything from hormone-related breast and prostate cancers to polycystic ovarian syndrome and early puberty. But did you know BPA is just one of at least a thousand chemicals or chemical mixtures that can tinker with our bodies’ delicate hormonal systems, setting us up for disease? (1) Endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs) like phthalates, triclosan and even compounds detected in fish you should never eat are among the 85,000-plus manufactured chemicals in use in the United States. They’re found in everyday products and throughout the environment. For instance, did you know that things like atrazine increase tap water toxicity? It’s true. Research spanning the last 25 years implicates endocrine disruptors in many health problems, including male reproductive disorders, premature death, obesity and diabetes, neurological impacts, breast cancer, endometriosis, female reproductive disorders, immune disorders, liver cancer, osteoporosis, Parkinson’s symptoms, prostate cancer, and thyroid disorders. Our current laws clearly aren’t working, and policies are needed to protect people from the harmful consequences of EDC exposure. Until Congress makes it illegal for companies to put such toxic ingredients in our products, it’s unfortunately up to us to do our best to avoid hormone-disrupting chemicals. (2) But it certainly makes a strong case for electing officials who back meaningful chemical reform, doesn’t it? It seems unfair busy families should have to go to these lengths just to stay safe. What Do Endocrine Disruptors Do? First we need to ask: What is an endocrine disruptor? According to the National Institute of Environmental Health Science, endocrine disruptors are chemicals that may interfere with the body’s endocrine system and produce adverse developmental, reproductive, neurological and immune effects in both humans and wildlife. The damage is believed to be most severe during prenatal or early pregnancy exposure. (3) “From the day of conception until an individual is born or hatched, the development of each stage of life is fully under the control of hormones. “Changes that happen during development are far less reversible [than those occurring in an adult]; you can’t go back and rewire the brain.”— the late Theo Colborn, Ph.D., zoologist and founder and president of the Endocrine Disruption Exchange What Makes Up Your Endocrine System? Let’s take a step back. How do we define endocrine? What does endocrine mean? The endocrine system, made up of all the body’s different hormones, regulates all biological processes in the body from conception through adulthood and into old age. This includes the: (4) • development of the brain and nervous system • growth and function of the reproductive system • function of metabolism and blood sugar levels Major components of the endocrine system include: • female ovaries • male testes • pituitary gland • thyroid gland • adrenal glands Other components include the: • pineal gland • thymus • hyperthalamus • parathyroid glands • pancreas • Hypothalamus The hypothalamus links our endocrine and nervous systems together. The hypothalamus drives the endocrine system. Pituitary Gland The pituitary gland receives signals from the hypothalamus. This posterior lobe secretes hormones that are made by the hypothalamus. The anterior lobe produces its own hormones. Some of these act on other endocrine glands. Thyroid Gland This gland is critical to the healthy development and maturation of humans. It also regulates metabolism. Adrenal Glands Made up of two glands, the cortex and medulla, the adrenal glands produce hormones in response to stress. Adrenal glands also regulate blood pressure, glucose metabolism, and the body’s salt and water balance. Pancreas The pancreas is responsible for producing glucagon and insulin. Both hormones help regulate the concentration of glucose (sugar) in the blood. Gonads The male reproductive gonads are called testes. The female’s reproductive gonads are ovaries. Both produce steroids that affect growth and development and also regulate reproductive cycles and behaviors. The most prominent gonadal steroids are found in both men and women but at different levels. These include: • androgens • estrogens • progestins Endocrine Disruptors: The Dose Doesn’t Make the Poison When it comes to chemicals and toxicology, it seems logical to think higher doses of something are more dangerous because the health impacts are more immediate and obvious (just think about what happens when someone is exposed to high levels of pesticides — immediate poisoning warrants an emergency situation). But when you’re looking at endocrine disruptors, it’s different. Even seriously tiny doses can lead to devastating health effects. But sometimes these health impacts don’t show up for years or even decades down the line after exposure. And unlike high-dose poisonings, it’s not as easy to make the cause-and-effect connection. Researchers are making huge breakthroughs showing how endocrine-disrupting chemicals impact human health. And it’s not pretty. (It’s also costing the U.S. health care system a boatload. More on that later). “For decades, studies of endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs) have challenged traditional concepts in toxicology, in particular the dogma of ‘the dose makes the poison,’ because EDCs can have effects at low doses that are not predicted by effects at higher doses.” — Lauren Vandenberg, Ph.D., lead study author (5) Our hormonal systems are so delicate that even tiny exposures to endocrine-disrupting chemicals at key points of development could set us up for disease later in life. We’re taking exposures measured in the parts per billion. To put that into context, it’s like one drop in 20 Olympic-sized swimming pools. Member scientists of the Endocrine Society issued a report in which they claim: “We present the evidence that endocrine disruptors have effects on male and female reproduction, breast development and cancer, prostate cancer, neuroendocrinology, thyroid, metabolism and obesity and cardiovascular endocrinology.” (6) The ‘Dirty Dozen’ Endocrine Disruptors With more than a thousand potential hormone disruptors out there, Environmental Working Group scientists created a list of the 12 most damaging and prominent endocrine disruptors to avoid: The Brain Drain and Economic Cost of Endocrine Disruptors The negative health effects of endocrine disruptors are so widespread that endocrine disruptors, according to an analysis in Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology, cost the United States over 2 percent of its gross domestic product — a median of $340 billion annually. Researchers predict these numbers are even lower than the reality, since only a portion of endocrine-disrupting chemicals were analyzed. This report is a huge deal because for the first time, we’re able to put a conservative estimate on how the ingredients in many everyday products are costing us our health (and money to treat). (7) In my opinion, it just doesn’t seem fair that companies get to profit from this while the citizens are stuck with the bill and illnesses. How to Avoid Endocrine Disruptors Avoid Plastics Plastics contain endocrine disruptors that leach into food and water, particularly when heated. Opt for glass when possible, and don’t heat food in plastic containers or coated paperboard. University of Missouri analysts studying breast cancer growth found that a brand of water bottled in plastic caused a 78 percent increase in the cancer cell proliferation. (8) Grecian researchers at the University of Ioannina found that after heating olive oil for 10 minutes at full power, 604.6 milligrams of the plasticizer DOA leeched from the plastic wrap into the oil. (9) Researchers Oi-Wah Lau and Siu-Kay Wong found that the fat content in cheeses caused the migration of plasticizers from cling wrap to increase exponentially: 60 percent after 10 minutes of microwave heating. (10) Take on BPA This is one of the worst hormone disruptors out there, in my opinion. Animal studies suggest exposure to it today can actually impact three future generations. (11) It’s clear we need stronger chemical reform laws to protect us from these widespread threats. In the meantime, avoid canned food and instead choose fresh or frozen. And just eat less packaged foods in general. In 2016, EWG found 16,000 foods and drinks that come in cans, bottles and jars could contain the estrogen-like chemical BPA. The EWG report found BPA is commonly used in: • The lids of glass jars for baby food, pickles, jelly, salsa and other condiments • Aerosol cans for whipped toppings and nonstick sprays • Bottles and tins of cooking oil • Aluminum beverage cans, metal coffee cans and even beer kegs (12) Use Safe Household Cleansers Avoid phthalates and other hormone disruptors by making your own cleaners. Buy environmentally safe laundry detergents and dishwashing liquid. You can also make your own cleansers of every type, like all-natural homemade laundry soap, homemade oven cleaner and homemade household cleaner. Back off on the antibacterial soaps and cleaners, and use less chemical disinfectants. The FDA is banning triclosan and more than a dozen other antibacterial ingredients, but many will be on the market until September 2017. The replacement ingredients may not be necessary or safe, either, so just stick to regular Castile soap and water. Rethink Your Birth Control Choosing a more natural approach to birth control is safer than hormonal forms of contraception, especially since we now know birth control causes depression in some women. Conventional birth control pills work by putting synthetic forms of estrogen and progestin into the body. Adding unnatural hormones throws off the natural hormone balance in the body, resulting in unwanted birth control side effects. Condoms and non-hormonal IUDs are other options to consider. Read Your Health and Beauty Product Labels The average person uses nine different personal care products a day that contain a whopping 126 different ingredients, according to EWG. (13) While the list of hormone-disrupting chemicals in cosmetics is long, here’s a great trick to quickly weed out products that likely contain endocrine-disrupting phthalates. Look on the ingredients list. If you see “fragrance” or “parfum,” avoid it. Those are catch-all terms that can include 3,000+ chemicals that often include phthalates. You can also rate your current personal care products and find safer ones at Environmental Working Group’s Skin Deep Cosmetic Safety database. Change Your Diet What we eat and drink has a great deal to do with how many hormone disruptors we end up with. Anti-estrogenic diets have three major components: eating farther down on the food chain, eating less processed and chemically laden foods, and supplementing your diet with compounds that decrease estrogen excess and help your body to eliminate added hormones. • Avoid processed and refined foods. Besides the many food additives and chemicals that processed and refined foods contain, the lack of fiber and extra sugar overwhelm your colon and liver so that circulating hormones are reabsorbed rather than eliminated. • Avoid pesticides and herbicides. Buying organic can limit your intake of endocrine disruptors in and on fruits and vegetables. • Buy pasture-raised animal products. Your best bet is to connect with a local farmer and learn about their farming practices. The ultimate goal is for the animal to to eat a natural, pesticide- and GMO-free diet. If that’s not possible, look for “American Grassfed” products or “Animal Welfare Approved.” When it comes to eggs, remember that “free-range” doesn’t necessarily mean that animals have access to grass. For eggs, pasture-raised and organic is the gold standard. “Natural” means nothing, so don’t trust that on the label. • Eat detox veggies. The more fresh vegetables you eat, the lower you’re eating on the food chain. Toxins accumulate in the tissues of animals. Fresh veggies have a whole host of health benefits, as well as the ability to deflect excess estrogens. Cruciferous veggies, such as broccoli and cabbage, contain flavones and indoles that are particularly effective at battling estrogen excess. And, of course, avoid the high-estrogen foods. • Buy...

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