Endocrine disruptors and frog penises

I was just reading an article on the problems of maintaining viable populations of slow-reproducing endangered species (sturgeon, for example) because of endocrine disruptors.

This is an issue I have been talking about for years - 20 years ago I went to a conference on infant health. One of the presentations was on declining male fertility - the cause suspected was estrogen in the food supply. Silly me - I logically thought this would mean we would stop using estrogen to plump up those chicken breats - but no - the presenter said the solution was to improve IVF techniques. ARRRGGH!

Consider PVC's - we eventually banned PVC's - but they are still in our water supply - and having a disastrous effect on sea creatures, most especially whales. So while in another 20 years we may finally get around to addressing the hormone disrupters and estrogen - but the stuff already there will stick around for a long time. So we shouldn't be so sanguine about how easy a problem this would be to solve. Clearly - sewage filtering of at least the estrogen (primarily from discarded birth control and cosmetics) would be a nice start. No longer using estrogen to fatten poultry might be nice too.

Shelley - wow - did not know about the soy - tofu would then be suspect also?

Did you also know we have the 3rd highest incidence of gynecomastia on
Earth, especially among 3rd world/nonwhite populations? Go the the beaches near LA or Miama-truly freaky. Way too many boys with t-shirts on out of shame.

Phreecque Shoux - we have also seen a significant lowering of the age at which girls enter puberty - among white females it used to be 13 - now it is 11. Among hispanics ( with a high chicken content in the diet) it is 9 - 10. Short childhoods.

Cecelia,

Endocrine disruptors in the water supply may well be (and are, I suspect) one of the causes behind earlier onset of menarche in girls. But there are at least two other widely suspected factors:
1) higher-fat diets which allow for faster maturation and
2) more fatherless homes- there are both theoretical reasons (from population ecology) and some suggestive evidence to believe that growing up without a male relative in the household stimulates girls to enter menarche earlier. Mr. Dreher often argues that growing up without a father present is bad for girls spiritually, well it turns out it's bad for them physically as well. I'll furnish some cites if you want them.

Believe it or not, it appears as though the environmentalists, the social conservatives, and the health-food nuts all identified separate reasons for this problem, and they all may be, to some extent, correct.....

There have been anecdotal reports of an increase of deformed frogs for several years now.

There have also been studies of polar bears showing increased genital abnormalities. Big carnivores, such as polar bears by being at the top of the food chain tend to show this damage early, as the chemicals tend to be more concentrated.

Hector @ 3:31 PM writes:

"2) more fatherless homes- there are both theoretical reasons (from population ecology) and some suggestive evidence to believe that growing up without a male relative in the household stimulates girls to enter menarche earlier. Mr. Dreher often argues that growing up without a father present is bad for girls spiritually, well it turns out it's bad for them physically as well. I'll furnish some cites if you want them."

I don't know about Mr. Dreher, Hector, but I would appreciate a look at them.

Also, does anyone know of any articles containing information about how to avoid or filter these endocrine disruptors out ?

Your servant,

Lord Karth

Avoid endocrine disruptors by getting a reverse osmosis filter on your drinking water, for starters.

I have a feeling that if it came down to 5-10% of boys (or more) being born genitally deformed, and 30%+ men lacking sufficient sperm to reproduce, vs. giving up the ever precious birth control pill, that the birth control pill would win, hands down.

Survival of the species, in the mind of its users, is much much less important than their being able to get a little more nookie, whenever and wherever they want it, without worrying about the normal subsequent consequences (babies).

What a sad commentary on our society.

Ceceilia and Karth,

Here are a few cites....while it's not my area of ecology (at all) it is a fascinating hypothesis.

Hoier, S. 2003. "Father absence and age at menarche: a test of four evolutionary models." Human Nature 14(3); 209-233.

Moffitt, T.E., Caspi, A., Belsky, J., and Silva, P. 1992. "Childhood experience and the onset of menarche: A test of a sociobiological model." Child Development 63(10): 47-58.

Maestripieri, D., Roney, J., DeBias, N., Duranti, K., and Spaepen, G. 2004. 'Father absence, menarche, and interest in infants among adolescent girls." Developmental Science 7(5): 560-566.

Kanazawa, S. 2001. "Why father absence might precipitate early menarche: The role of polygyny." Evolution and Human Behavior 22(5): 329-334.