What is Xenoestrogen?
Xenoestrogen or Environmental estrogen is the technical term for any of a group of synthetic substances found in the environment that, when absorbed into a person's system, function in a similar way to estrogen (female sex hormones)
SOURCES of Xenoestrogen:
Xenoestrogen can be found in many things such as food, cleaning products, drugs, electronics, manufacturing preservatives, artificial food coloring and many more.
Xenoestrogens are not only found in food products, but also drugs such as birth control.
Other sources of environmental estrogens include plastics that contain bisphenol A, our household products such as detergents, heavy metals such as lead and zinc; some pesticides such as DDT; anabolic growth promoter (e.g. Zeranol) for cow, chicken etc.
Effects on Health:
• Xenoestrogens have been implicated in a variety of medical problems, and during the last 10 years many scientific studies have found hard evidence of adverse effects on human and animal health.
• There is a concern that xenoestrogens may act as false messengers and disrupt the process of reproduction. Xenoestrogens, like all estrogens, can increase growth of the endometrium.
• The sex ratios are female biased because xenoestrogens interrupt gonadal configuration causing complete or partial sex reversal of male.
• Sperm concentrations and motility perimeters are reduced in male fish exposed to xenoestrogens in addition to disrupt stages of spermatogenesis, thus fish production will decrease. Similar effect may occur in human.
• Another potential effect of xenoestrogens is on oncogenes, specifically in relation to breast cancer.
