Realfoodology - 45: Why Fertility is Declining with Dr. Shanna Swan

Episode Date: July 7, 2021

This episode is one of the most important episodes to date because it is something that affects every single one of us.  Yes, even YOU.  I invite Dr. Shanna Swan,  one of the world’s leading environmental and reproductive epidemiologists.  Her work examines the impact of environmental exposures and what they do to us.  We learn why fertility is declining, why we should be concerned and what we can do to stop it. https://www.shannaswan.com/COUNT DOWN book out now!

On today's episode of The Real Foodology Podcast, where are we seeing the most exposures to these phthalates and other chemicals? You'll love this, but food. You probably knew that answer, right? I did, but I want to hear it from you, the expert. Hi guys, welcome back to another episode of The Real Foodology Podcast. I'm your host, Courtney Swan. I am the creator behind Real Foodology, which is of course this podcast. It's also a food blog and

an Instagram, and I am so happy that you're here. If you love listening to this podcast, please consider leaving me a rate and review. It really helps me get this podcast into more ears. So if you have been following my recent soul journey, as I'm calling it, you know that I am still in Austin currently. I wonder if by the time you guys listen to this, if I will still be in Austin, we'll see. You'll have to follow me on Instagram to find out where I am. I left my apartment back in the end of May, my apartment in LA, just because I was feeling like I needed a change. I needed to get out for a second, and I was really just being drawn to go on a solo trip. And I thought I was just going to be gone for a couple of weeks. And when it came time for me to go back to LA, I just couldn't do

it. I was feeling really drawn to either go to Colorado or Austin, and I really couldn't figure it out. And then when I was looking at Airbnbs that I was going to rent in Denver, there was kind of a pit in my stomach, and it just didn't feel right. And I felt really drawn and led to go to Austin. And the second I chose Austin, it was like everything kind of went and just fell into place. Really. I found someone to rent my apartment in LA. I found a place in Austin pretty quickly, which is actually pretty shocking because housing in Austin is kind of hard to come across right now because Austin's kind of exploding right now. A lot of people are moving here right now, but as of right now, I am staying in a short-term rental and I'm going to assess in a couple of weeks whether or not I want

to go back to LA. So as always, I'm going to keep you guys updated on that. And please follow me on Instagram at real foodology. If you want to see more of the day-to-day. So today's episode is with Dr. Shauna Swan. I am really, really stoked on this episode. I have been looking forward to this one. And despite what it sounds like, Dr. Swan and I, we don't think we're related. We got into it a little bit before we started recording and we were trying to figure out if there was any sort of relation there, but I'm not sure that there is. I'm gonna have to call my dad and find out, but it is pretty interesting because most swans that I meet, um, outside of my family have two ends and she and I

say we share the same spelling, which was really interesting. Um, but yeah, not sure if there's any relation, but she is the world's leading environmental and reproductive epidemiologist. And she's a professor of environmental medicine and public health at the ICANN school of medicine at Mount Sinai in New York city. She's an award-winning scientist and her work right now is examining the impact of environmental exposures, including chemicals, such as phthalates and BPA on men's and women's reproductive health. She also wrote the book Countdown, which is a great resource. I highly recommend getting that book so you can dive in further.

But everything we talk about today, she's been studying this for about 20 years now, and what she found is sperm counts are declining, infant boys are being born with more genital abnormalities, more girls are going into early puberty, and adult women are seeing declining egg quality and more miscarriages. And she's really trying to sound the alarm right now because in her studies, she found that there's a connection here with our exposure to certain chemicals that are in our food and our water, in our products like skincare, makeup, et cetera. And it's really concerning fertility aside, just from a health standpoint, this is more than just about making babies. Testosterone, for example, is a huge indicator of health. It's vital for weight control, sexual health, cognitive acuity, emotional wellbeing, cardiovascular health. And when we see testosterone decline, we can see,

of course, a decrease in libido or sex drive, reduced virility and vigor, mood changes, loss of stamina, loss of muscle tone, loss of memory, and other cognitive issues, and not to mention disease. As always, this is about finding balance in the body. And when we're imbalanced hormonally, it can really affect us and lead to cancers, disease, autoimmune disorders. All sorts of things can go awry in the body. And the same for women. Our period infertility is like our monthly health report card.

So when something is off there, our hormones are imbalanced. It can also lead to cancers and other issues in the body. So it's really concerning when these things are off. It's an indication that something bigger is happening in the body and we really need to pay attention to it. I am so glad that we have people like Dr. Shana who are exposing this right now and really sounding the alarm because we need to pay attention. This is something that we should have fixed 20 years ago, but at least we're here now and people are becoming aware of it. So in this episode, we really dive into her work. What is causing these declines in fertility? How did she

figure it out? What's happening in utero when women and their babies are being exposed to these toxic chemicals? It's not all doom and gloom. We also talk about things that you can do on a personal level to limit your exposure and so much more. So with that, let's just get straight into the episode. I have a new routine for every podcast recording. I always like to take something before I record an episode just to help boost cognitive function and help me stay sharp and focused.

I love neurotropics, and I've been testing them out more recently because they've been getting a lot of coverage right now, a lot of studies coming out right now. And if you're wondering right now, if you're listening, like what is neurotropic? So these are smart drugs that could be natural or synthetic substances. I like to stay on the natural side of things that are taken to improve mental performance in healthy people. They're most often used to boost memory, focus, creativity, intelligence, and motivation.

This is really exciting. Organifi now has kid stuff. They just released two kid products. One is called Easy Greens, and it's a refreshing green apple juice where kids will never know that it's packed with veggies. And the other one is called Protect. It's a delicious wild berry punch like the Kool-Aid that we used to have as a kid, but without any sugar.

This is really exciting. And if you've listened to the podcast for a while, you know that I'm a huge fan of Organifi, and most specifically because every single product that they make is glyphosate residue free. So you know that you're going to be able to give these powders to your kids and know that they will be able to consume them safely without any glyphosate in it. So let's break down each one. The Easy Greens is a nourishing and delicious blend of superfoods and veggies that provides essential nutrients, probiotics, and digestive enzymes to bring balance to kids' growing bodies without fillers, additives, or junk.

It helps to fill in nutritional gaps, aids in growth and development, supports digestive health, has a rich micronutrient profile, and includes digestive enzymes. This would be a great way to sneak in greens for your little one without them actually knowing that it's healthy for them. And the second one, which is the wild berry punch similar to Kool-Aid is called Protect. And it is to support your child's daily immune health with food derived nutrients that work to strengthen their body's first line of defense. I know just through girlfriends of mine that have children that when your kids are going to school, going to daycare, they're coming home sick a lot

more often just because they're getting exposed to different kids and different viruses when they're out in the world playing with kids. So this would be a great way to help to support your little one's immune health. It's organic and it's also made with real whole food ingredients. It has a delicious berry taste and it's low sugar and it's gentle enough for kids to take every single day. And I really love the ingredients in this one. It's orange and acerol cherry, which is a powerful source of vitamin C and antioxidants, astragalus, elderberry, and propolis. These are all really great for overall immune health. If you want to try the products that I talked about today or any of the Organifi products, go to Organifi.com slash RealFoodology and use code real food ology for 20% off again that's organifi it's o-r-g-a-n-i-f-i dot-com slash real food ology did you know that

most cookware and appliances are made with forever chemicals yes that means your nonstick pans your air fryers your waffle makers your blender could possibly have PIFAs and yes even our beloved crockpots and pressure cookers. I have actually been talking about this for so long. Back in 2006, my mom came to my dorm room and made me get rid of all my nonstick pans because she was concerned about me being exposed to something called Teflon. Teflon is a coating that is used on nonstick pans and a lot of these appliances that I just named. So I've avoided Teflon, nonstick, PFA coated appliances, pots and pans, you name it, for a very long time. And the only option for a very long time was just stainless steel pots and pans.

So I was really excited when a company like Our Place came out because they started creating really beautiful cookware and appliances that are like pieces of art. Every appliance that I have from Our Place, I legit wanna store it on the counter. And I'm the type of person that does not want anything on my counter because I like it to look really just clean and minimal.

But I'm so obsessed with all the Our Place products that I have so many of them displayed on my counter because they are legit pieces of art. Our Place is a mission-driven and female-founded brand that makes beautiful kitchen products that are healthy and sustainable. All their products are made without PFAS, which are the forever chemicals, and also made without PTFE, which is Teflon. If a company is not outwardly stating that they don't use these chemicals, then if they are using nonstick coating on their appliances, they are absolutely using forever chemicals. And there's been increasing global scrutiny for their impact on the environment and our

health and recognizing this impact. The EU plans to prohibit PFAS by 2025. Our place has always been PFAS free and they offer durable toxin-free ceramic coatings, ensuring a healthy, safe cooking experience. And let me tell you, you guys, they are changing the game with non-toxic appliances. They have a blender, they have an air fryer, they have a crock pot, not to mention their amazing always pan. They have a perfect pot, which is just the perfect size for soups. And they also just came out with a cast iron that I'm loving as well.

And I more recently replaced all of the bowls and plates in my kitchen because I really needed an upgrade. My other ones were so old. So I got some from our place and they are so beautiful. The ceramics are beautiful. The colors are amazing. Like I said, everything is like a piece of art. If you want to try any of the products from our place, go to fromourplace.com and enter my code real foodology checkout to receive 10% off sitewide. That's from our place.com code real foodology. Our place offers a 100 day trial with free shipping and returns. Well, Shauna, thank you so much for coming on today. So I want to just get right into it. Firm counts are declining. Infant boys are being born

with more genital abnormalities. There's more girls that are going into early puberty. And then we're even, even seeing now adult women are seeing declining egg quality and more miscarriages and you know why. So what's causing this? I wish I could say I knew why, but I can say what some factors are that are probably influencing this. This is about as far as I can go, right? But those factors have to do with chemicals in our daily lives that our body confuses with our natural hormones, what we call endocrine disrupting chemicals. That's one cause of the many, many problems you mentioned, which have other causes, for example, lifestyle factors, which include diet, by the way, as problems you mentioned, which have other causes, for example, lifestyle factors,

which include diet, by the way, as well as alcohol, smoking, obesity, stress, and so on. So I actually look at two kinds of factors, the lifestyle and the chemical. So how did you figure this out? How did you get started on this track? Oh gosh. Um, so I started thinking about declining fertility and declining sperm count back in the late nineties. Um, and there was a paper that came out in 1992 that said that sperm counts had declined significantly, 50% actually in 50 years. And I was on a committee and that committee wondered about how real that was. And so they asked me and so I spent six months looking at that I was skeptical at first I didn't believe those findings and then um I spent these six months trying to think about what could make that go away

so was it a change in how sperm count was measured or is it a change in the men who are in the studies or are they more obese now or are they older you know all these more smokers all these things that might you know produce a parent decline that was um really due to other factors that were changing we call those confounders and and so i really looked at that hard and i um got all the 61 studies that had been, you know, underlying that study. I couldn't make it go away. And so I said, well, maybe this is real. And then I thought, well, if it's real, what could it be? So, yeah, so that was the start. And so it's been a long journey.

You know, it's more than 20 years I've been looking at this. Yeah, that's how I started. So for everyone listening that's unaware of your findings, what are you seeing right now? And I know it starts in utero, but what are you seeing and why should we be so concerned about it? Well, the first alarm bell, if you will, was when I redid that 92 study using modern methods in a much bigger sample and using something called meta-analysis, which is a way of synthesizing a lot of information. And in that meta-analysis, we found exactly the same thing that had been reported in 1992, but for a slightly different timeframe. So what we reported in that meta-analysis, which is 2017, was that sperm counts had dropped more than 50% in actually 39 years. So it was slightly faster, but we could only make that conclusion about Western countries, because it

turned out that other countries, Western being Europe, North America, Australia, New Zealand, other countries being everything else, there were not very many studies from those other countries. Most of the studies had come from Western countries. And those other studies tended to be pretty recent. They didn't span the whole time period. So we could only really draw conclusions about the Western countries, but in the Western countries, and particularly in men who we call are unselected, men who were not known to have fathered a pregnancy, men who are likely to know what their sperm count was, those are the men that are most representative. In those men, we saw this sharp decline. So when that was published, it was pretty big news. And I got a call from an agent, literary agent, and she said, do you want to write a book about this? And again, my first reaction

was negative because I have been, you know, I've written over 200 papers about this stuff. And I spoke to many, many, many conferences about it. And I figure I had said it, you know, but what she pointed out was that I would reach a different audience if I wrote a book, a non-academic, non-scientific audience. And so she persuaded me and she persuaded me to get a writer to work with so that my voice would be heard better, a voice that would talk to people who were not scientists. And I've got a wonderful writer, Stacey Colino. And so she and I wrote that together. And the results are, I think, pretty good. A lot of people have liked it. And it's really made a pretty big impact because I think

now, um, we're saying in a way that people can hear. Um, so, um, well, it's like, finally people are paying attention. You know, I mean, this is something for me personally in my journey in health, um, that I've been paying attention to for the last 10 years. You know, I've been telling people avoid plastic, don't microwave in plastic, don't drink out of plastic water bottles, you know, all that kind of stuff. And I feel like for the last 10 years, I, you know, I'm like screaming in this corner and no one is really listening. And I'm sure I can't even imagine how you feel knowing having all the research behind it. So I bet it feels good to know that now people are finally starting to pay attention and wake up to all this. It feels really good to know that now people are finally starting to pay attention and wake up to all this.

It feels really good to know that I've gotten such a great response and so many people interested. And it also points out how much more work we have to do because this is really, you know, we're just pointing out the problem, but we don't have a lot of answers for the solutions yet. Yeah. So, you know, we could start with the problems maybe, huh? Yeah. Let's, let's go into the problem. So what are we seeing in utero and what's causing it?

So, um, what's happening in utero is, you know, that's when it all develops when it's all laid down, what, how are you going to be for your life is really laid down in utero is, you know, that's when it all develops, when it's all laid down, what, how you're going to be for your life is really laid down in utero. And so you're really sensitive at that time, starts with a few cells and they're dividing very, very rapidly. When cells are dividing very rapidly, they're very sensitive to influences of one kind and another, and that development is all programmed genetically, right? So there's a nice, it's like a ballet with, you know, dancers coming in at certain times, doing the right steps, and so on, and if that choreography doesn't work, if it's interrupted, then the impact will be to disrupt development in a way that's going to be permanent

for your whole life. So changes that occur in utero are doubly important. They affect how you are when you're born, but they also affect how you're going to develop throughout your life, right? So now what can interrupt that? Well, those processes, many of them depend on hormones. So they're driven by the body's natural hormones. And it turns out that many of the chemicals that you've been warning people about have the ability to interfere with that process, that interfere with the amount of hormone that's produced or when it's produced, how it's transported, how it's interpreted by the body. So these are chemicals that are called endocrine disruptors because endocrine equals hormone, hormone system, endocrine system. And so if you have your body being deluged really with hundreds of chemicals that your body can confuse with its own natural hormones, you can see that that could really confuse things in development. And that's what happens. So I was listening to another podcast that you're on recently, and you were talking about the size of, I forgot the medical term, so I'm just going to say the taint. I heard you talk about that a

lot. Why should we be so concerned about that and what's happening? So that maybe that was the Joe Rogan podcast. It was. Yeah. Yeah, probably because he really jumped on that. And so the taint is a street term, but you won't see it in medical books or scientific books. It's what we call it is the anogenital distance, which is a mouthful. So I say AGD, anogenital distance. And that distance is what it says. It's the distance measured as the caliber from the anus to the genitals. Where you actually place that second point is, you know, there's some dispute about maybe some, you know, different ways to do that. But basically you're measuring the length of the perineum. And it turns

out that the male AGD is naturally much bigger than the female. And that stands to reason because there's a lot more real estate, if you will. They're packing a lot more. And so the, yeah, so we expect it to be 50 to 100% bigger in a male. So let's go back into the uterus and think about what's happening. So very early in pregnancy, there's a neutral genital tract, same in males and females, just one single line. And testosterone comes along, choreographed at the right time. And then the male, that is the XY genetic male, gets that signal and starts to develop the male typical genitals. So, you know, the penis and the score and so on.

And at the same time, that anagenal distance increases. Now, if the testosterone doesn't come there, it didn't get its cue to come on stage, then that process is not complete or maybe it doesn't even happen. Right? So you can see if it needs testosterone, it's not there. It's not, the process doesn't. So what happens is usually not that no testosterone is there, but their testosterone is too low or maybe a little too late. And what can do that

surprisingly is chemicals like phthalates that make plastic soft and flexible. Wow. Who would have thought, right? Yeah. That's frightening because it's in everything I feel like. Yeah. Yeah. In our modern world. So, so this was shown in animals first and it was pretty surprising. And those animal researchers called this change in the male genital system the phthalate syndrome so it has a name it is a thing and um i my work was to see whether it existed in humans and actually then to show that it did indeed exist in humans and if you want i can tell you how i did that but that's sort of the overview overview of the... And then the last step of it is to say, well, what is that? Who cares?

You know, what does it matter if this distance is shorter in a male? Does that matter? Does it matter for how he develops later? Does it matter for his fertility and his sperm count? And the answer is yes. Do you want to hear the biggest discovery of our time for promoting healthy aging? Of course you do, because all of us are concerned about aging. There is a class of ingredients called senolytics that were discovered less than 10 years ago, and they are being called

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real foodology to get $100 off your lumen. That is L U M E N dot M E and use real foodology at checkout for a hundred dollars off. Thank you so much to Lumen for sponsoring this episode. Wow. So, so there's a couple of pieces, balance in the body, expect, affect the development of the generals and that development affects how that man matures and actually is able to reproduce later on. That's really concerning. And is there a connection between that distance and the sperm count when they get older? Yeah. Yeah. That's the surprising thing.

So we, we looked at that question in some college students in Rochester, New York, and we asked them to come in, give us a sperm sample, semen sample. We measured their sperm count. And then we asked them if we could do this exam on them it was the same exam we had done on the babies for whom we had examined you know their agd in relation to their mother's exposure to phthalates when they were in utero and it's a you take a calipers and you actually measure you measure all everything and And they did that. And then we saw that when that distance, the AGD, the taint was shorter, that his sperm count was lower. So, and also in another study, we didn't do that, but in a study in an infertility clinic, Mike Eisenberg showed that when men had, some men in an infertility clinic had fathered children,

you know, it might be the woman's problem, but so men in this clinic who had fathered a child had a significantly longer intergeneral distance than those who had never fathered a child. So interesting. And I'm, you know, I'm curious too, because, you know, you're, we're seeing these issues in utero, but do we know what this exposure is doing to adults? Like, is it affecting sperm counts later in life or is it what happened in utero that then sets up their sperm count for life? Yeah. So I haven't actually, and I don't think, you know, people have not actually done a study of men outside of the pregnancy setting to see whether their body burdens of these phthalates affect their sperm count. And that's a study that should be done.

But I'll tell you a couple of things that we do know about adult exposure. First of all, there's a wonderful study being done at Harvard's ongoing in which women and men who are seeking to undergo assisted reproduction come in and have their body burden measured. And for that's for phthalates, that's for phenols, for the PFOAs, the PFAS chemicals, the pesticides, you know, lots and lots of chemicals. So they measure these chemicals in the urine at the time of the man and woman, at the time they're going to assisted reproduction. And they've shown in a whole series of papers that those exposures correlate with the success of the procedure. So when exposures are higher, it's less likely to be successful. There can be fewer eggs retrieved. There can be poorer eggs. They can be lower embryo quality,

poor implantation, and less likelihood of a live birth. So all along the way, they can be affected. And then also, this is kind of surprising that, and this was in our study, we asked women

in whom we had measured phthalates about their sexual satisfaction and frequency and so on. And that was related. So when women had higher levels of certain phthalates that they were had less, um, sexual satisfaction, lower libido, if you will. And that was shown in men in, uh, in occupational study in relation to bisphenol A in China. So it's not only the, it's not just fertility and it's not just a sperm count. It's in this whole area of libido and sexual function, sexual satisfaction, and then erectile dysfunction was related to BPA exposure and testosterone levels. So it's the whole ball of wax is how it all works anywhere

along the way that depends on hormones can be messed up if you interfere with hormones. Makes sense, right? Yeah, well, exactly. I mean, I was going to bring up that point that just, you know, from a health standpoint, fertility aside, it's quite concerning because it's not just about making babies, testosterone and estrogen, all of those hormones are a huge indicator of health. It's like a health report card. Yeah. And you might not be surprised if I tell you that when men have lower sperm count or are infertile, they have more disease later in life. They have more heart disease, have more diabetes, they have they die earlier, earlier age of death. So that's pretty dramatic, right? And that's because like you said,

these hormones are needed for overall health. And if you interfere with them, particularly in utero, then you're going to drive, you know, for health later in life. Yeah, I mean, that's incredibly concerning and this is kind of linked, but you know, what would you say to someone? Cause I know there's a lot of conversation about how the earth is overpopulated and what would you say to someone that thinks maybe this could be a good thing for population control? Are you concerned for other reasons outside of that? Oh, I think that's a really unfeeling thing to say. I agree. Yeah. Yeah. A couple who wants to have a baby should be able to. Whether they want to or not is another question.

But when they want to, they should be able to. And the fact that many cannot and for many people that's tied to their exposures is concerning. And by the way, we know that other species, non-human species are also having their fertility threatened. And we see endangered species, smaller litter sizes and so on. And those species did not choose to have smaller families, right? They didn't choose to reduce their family size. This was forced on them by our exposures that we produce in the environment.

That's really frightening. Yeah, I read something about frogs that are being exposed to this one chemical that it's causing them to change sexes. Right. So atrazine, that's atrazine. That's a pesticide. It's one of the most highly used pesticides in the world. And the researcher who did that, Tyrone Hayes, fabulous, you know, ecotoxicologist. And he can, in the laboratory or in the wild, he can observe it, he can produce homosexual frogs, frogs that mate with other frogs,

and also frogs that have ovaries and testes in the same animal, so hermaphroditic frogs, right, not just frogs, because there's other species like alligators that have smaller penises and smaller litter sizes and birds and lots and lots of species have been shown to have altered reproduction when they're exposed to these chemicals. You know what really concerns me when I hear that is what about all the chemicals that we're being exposed to that we're not even aware of yet that have an effect? Yeah, you and me both. It's really kind of hard to get your mind around because, you know, the CDC measures up to 100 chemicals in a sample of the U.S. population every two years. That's an ongoing study. Probably not right now. um they've shown that most of these are in you know a substantial

portion of the u.s population and those are just the ones they measure and you know each cycle they add additional chemicals as more are coming out as chemicals of concern so we don't really know the number we're exposed to. There's a number that's bounced around, which is how many chemicals are there in commerce? Nobody knows. But we know it's in the tens of thousands. So numbers I've heard are 80 and 70 and 50 and 90. But if you just think about, I know about one class of chemicals pretty well, phthalates. I know quite a bit about one other class of chemicals. That's the bisphenols and so on and so forth. Yeah, BPA and some pesticides.

But what about what are the other thousands that have never even been tested? So it's a concern. Yeah, it's a big concern. It's a really big concern, especially when you, or I just know this about the U S in particular, but you know, for example, with our beauty and skincare products, they're not regulated at all. So as of right now, companies can put any sort of chemical they want in there. And, you know, you think about women using makeup every day, putting lotion on perfume. I don't even want to begin to think about the

hundreds of different chemicals we're being exposed to just on a daily basis. Yeah. So I'm glad you mentioned personal care products and makeup, cosmetics. One of the functions of phthalates is to hold color and scent. So anything that has a color in it, that's a good way to tell, isn't it? You know, it's probably going to have a phthalate in it. Things that, when we asked women what they had used in the 24 hours before they gave their urine sample, you know, what makeup, what perfume, and we always asked, was it fragranced? And when they used fragrance products, their levels of one particular phthalate, diapuglothalate, was much higher. And diethyl phthalate actually too. So we know that these chemicals are in everything fragranced. And they're not just beauty products. Anything that

smells, so your laundry soap, something you plug in the wall, an air freshener, something you hang in your car to make it smell better. No good. No good. Try to get those out of your life if you can. Wow. I mean, it's really concerning. So I want to take this back a little bit.

Do we know molecularly, like at a cellular level, what these are doing to our body? Do we understand the effects? We understand a lot of the effects. And a lot of it has to do with, like I was saying, hormone regulation, transport, synthesis, function. There are, I'm sure, many other effects, but I'm not a physiologist. I can't really tell you. I can only tell you what we can measure. So function. So we know, for example, that there are links to brain development and child development, you know, in terms of language, in terms of behavioral problems and so on. People are showing links. There've also been links to respiratory problems.

There've been links to immune function problems, which are probably relevant to today's situation of where immunity is so important. And different people focus on different areas of development, but pretty much everywhere where people have looked, they see that these chemicals having adverse effects at a basic cellular level, and particularly when exposure is in utero. And is this a global thing, or is this more concentrated in the U.S.? It's definitely a global thing. There are no unexposed populations, human or non-human,

by the way. Even non-human animals have been found with these chemicals at, you know, in the Arctic Circle, polar bears and so on and seals. And these chemicals have been found at the bottom of the Marianas Trench. They're everywhere, right? Because these products are distributed everywhere. So it's not a local problem at all. It's a global problem. Oh my God. So are phthalates classified as forever chemicals? I know that there's a certain, they're not. Yeah. So no, they're, so the big, you know, the division between the forever and what we call non-persistent, um, is how long they stay in the body and salad stay in the body. An average, the half-life is four hours. That's pretty short. Yeah. Um, yeah. And so, um um the good news is that if we could stop

bringing them into our body they would be gone pretty quickly and there's a wonderful book called slow death by rubber duck in which two environmentalists set up this experiment where they measured their body burden and then they reduced their exposure by making all these changes to their food and their, how the food was packaged and their personal care products. And they're, you know, not using any fragrance and so on and so forth. They followed all those recommendations, which people can read in countdown, by the way. And then they took, you know, they got their body burden again and found that many, many of these chemicals had gone down and then they loaded themselves back up and

their, you know, their body burden went back up. So you can alter your body burden pretty quickly, which is very good to know by making these changes, but you have to make them permanently because otherwise this stuff keeps coming in. Yeah. I mean, and that's, what's frightening about it is it, it feels pretty pervasive in our modern environment, you know? So how, where, where are we seeing the most exposures to these phthalates and other chemicals? You'll love this, but food. Yeah. You probably knew that answer, right? I did, but I want to hear it from you, the expert. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's, you know, that's what we believe. Obviously we haven't measured, we can't know the sources of every exposure in the body. We just can't know that. But we do know that food contains

a lot of phthalates. And it comes in through probably starting with the pesticides, because phthalates are added to pesticides to increase absorption. And then it is in the packaging and then if the food is processed say to make soup or a you know a tv meal or a sauce it it will very likely go through some contact with a soft plastic whether it's a tube or it's a covering or a liner of a whatever and and then it's got to be shipped and it's going to be shipped in plastic and then we take it in our home and we store it in plastic and then i hope we don't but some people do cook in plastic which of course you don't want to do so um that's you know that's, you know, that's really important. And I really want to understand better how these thalys get into our foods. And it's not just thalys. For example, bisphenol A is in the lining of tin cans. We know we get that, you know, that way. We know that the PFAS chemicals are lining

our pizza boxes. That's an example of how we might get exposed to those. I mentioned pesticides. So we can be exposed to all these classes of endocrine-destructing chemicals through our foods and our drink. And we don't really know how to get them out, do we? I mean, it really shouldn't be our job. Well, exactly.

We need to be holding these large corporations and these chemical companies accountable. But it's kind of frightening because I compare them often to, you know, the tobacco industry from a couple, you know, decades ago. And it seems as though they're doing similar things. They're lobbying against testing for this kind of stuff. And they also just don't want to change their ways, which I get. I mean, it would be really expensive. Because you think about in the actual like processing part of it, they're going to have to change the equipment that they use, the machinery, because we don't want to put it through plastic. But yeah, I mean, how do we change this? So I think the changes, you know, there's sort of three levels we have to think about. People have to demand

changes. Change doesn't happen until people really advocate for it. There has to be enough concern to bring about changes. Otherwise, why should people make changes, right? And they can do that with their purse, but I don't think we can shop our way out of this one. We can't actually recycle our way out of this one either. Because the changes have to be made at the basic chemical level. So that right now, the chemicals that go into our plastics are petroleum based. So they're made from byproducts of the petroleum industry. And that's a big part of the problem. If we could make them out of other chemicals that may be plant-based, although that's not necessarily safe, some alternative chemicals that can be made, you know, without depending on petroleum products. Many scientists are thinking about how to do this, including scientists in companies that make these chemicals.

So good for them. And it's great that they're doing that. But once the new chemicals have been produced, they have to be tested in a way that protects us. And the current testing systems do not do that. So the regulations actually don't protect us. The way FDA protects us pretty well for pharmaceuticals, but we don't have that

protection for our consumer products. Yeah, but hopefully your work is raising enough of an alarm that we're going to have that. One can hope, and actually they've done much better in the EU, where there's a lot more activism and a lot more concern. You mentioned personal care products, and I just want to point out that in Europe, there are 1,100 components or constituents that are banned from personal care products, but in the U.S., there's only 11. That's a huge difference. They have maybe 100 times better regulation than in the U.S., yeah. I mean, that is just so crazy. Why do you think that is?

Why don't we have regulation on that? We have a different view of the role of government, I think, in this country. Yeah. It's one of the basic things that we all know. Well, that's true. We do have a, it's considered safe until proved otherwise. And I've known other countries, they don't consider it safe until it is proven safe. Exactly. And that's the basis of the European regulation called REACH,

that a manufacturer has to show the chemical is safe before it's put into the marketplace. And that's one of the things we need to have. Yeah, we do. I want to take it slightly back just a little bit to the manufacturing part, because I think this is a huge, it's just a big concern. And I'm curious about this. So when it comes to plastic, either wrapping it or like, let's just say it's being processed through a plastic tube, whatever it is, is it still leaching even if it's not heated? Because I know one of the biggest things is when the plastic is heated, it leaches those chemicals. Is it also a concern if this food or drink or whatever it is, isn't heated? It's definitely more of a concern when it's warm, not necessarily heated. You just, um, so, um, think about a baby in the NICU. So baby in the NICU, nothing is heated, but there is the natural heat of the room and the baby and so on. And, and the number of lines coming into the baby is directly proportional to the amount of cellulose in the baby's urine. So that food doesn't have to be heated. It just has to pass through that tube into the baby. Wow. Yeah. You know, I think about this a lot in terms of plastic water bottles,

for example, because, you know, I've known for years that you never want to drink. I mean, I would argue you don't want to drink out of plastic at all, but you definitely don't want to drink it after it's been sitting in your car all day. So like, I think about this all the time, you know, I get in an Uber and they try to hand me a plastic water bottle. And I'm like, that plastic water bottle has probably been sitting in the heat for days. And I think about this too, even going to like, you know, a convenience store and grabbing a cold plastic water bottle from the fridge. I think, okay, but this has probably been sitting in the back of a truck for a week

to get here, just being heated up on its way. That's really concerning to me too. Right. And I don't think people think about that. So, you know, can we go, can we talk a little bit about more about the lifestyle factors? Yeah. I think that's going to be relevant to your audience. So, you know, I, I, those will affect male and female fertility and function. But what we did was we, in our study in Rochester, New York of young college students, we also asked them to complete a questionnaire and we asked them to complete

what's called the Harvard food frequency questionnaire. So they told us exactly what they ate in the past 24 hours. Right. And, um, and then that was analyzed by Jorge Tavaro at Harvard with his graduate students. And they published a series of papers that showed all the foods that were related to demand sperm count. And there were many of them. And so one sort of overall message was that Mediterranean diet helps. So the Mediterranean, you know what that is. Your listeners know what that is probably.

So low in red meat, high in fruit and vegetables, obviously saturated fats and so on. So, but then when you hone in on the fruits and vegetables, it turns out that if you ask people, which we did, whether they eat organic or not, it's only those who eat organic fruits and vegetables that have that protection conveyed by the eating of fruits and vegetables. So it has to be organic to help your sperm count and probably for women, their fertility as well. And we also found that processed meats were associated with lower sperm count. Anyway, there's just all of this matters. All of this matters. What you eat, I totally support your podcast, but all of this matters for reproductive health. So I think people should eat more mindfully, thinking about their reproductive

health and the health of the unborn fetus if they happen to be pregnant or about a man about to conceive a pregnancy. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and I think it's interesting because we're starting to understand with epigenetics that what we do today is not only going to affect us, it's going to affect our children, our grandchildren. We're seeing the direct correlation, you know, down generations. That's correct. And it's kind of surprising, but there are many exposures or experiences that people have that actually seem to affect later generations. Even trauma goes across generations. And just in terms of reproduction, it's pretty easy to see because you have a mother, and then inside her is the fetus. And then inside that fetus are the germ cells that are going to produce the next generation. So if the mother is exposed to something like a

phthalate, then the fetus is exposed, but so are the germ cells. So the next generation is going to be affected. So you're really eating and exposing yourself and your grandchildren at the same time. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's frightening when you look at our modern diets and what people are eating right now. I'm curious to know the science behind this. I think I know the answer, but I want to hear it from you. Why, why did they find that organic food was better for sperm counts? Oh, I don't know. I actually don't know. I mean, you, you, there are many examples of people exposed to pesticides, um, that have lower sperm count, but exactly why, I'm not sure. Let me just tell you, in our study, in four cities in the United States, one of our cities was Columbia, Missouri. Not really a city, it's a town, if you will, in central Missouri. And that's an agricultural area.

And there's a lot of corn and soy grown there and lots of pesticides are used. So we got semen samples from those men and also from several cities, one of them Minneapolis. So let's just concentrate on comparing the semen quality in Missouri and men in Minneapolis. So it turns out that men in central Missouri have only half as many moving sperm as men in Minneapolis. That's huge. Half. at the pesticide burden of the men. And we found that those who had low sperm count in Missouri had significantly higher levels of a lot of pesticides, particularly the triazine herbicides and also diazinon and a couple of other pesticides.

So that's pretty direct proof that the pesticides in the environment, and these were not workers, these were not farmers, these were just people living there, that that affected their sperm count. And among workers exposed to much higher levels, there are examples of pesticides actually wiping out sperm count completely, zero sperm. So exactly how that happens, I can't tell you, but it does happen. Yeah. Yeah, well, because it's affecting our, like you said earlier, our endocrine systems,

their endocrine disruptors. And actually, I have a question about that. So we know that it's affecting males. We've talked about that a lot. Is it also affecting females, like relatively about the same amount, or is one population being affected more? So, Courtney, the problem is women are much, much harder to study because they're in this way, in terms of reproduction, because their reproductive organs are not visible. So it's very easy to get a sperm count, and it's very hard to get an egg count, right?

And you can look at the quality of a sperm, but it's very difficult to look at the quality of an egg. You think about how difficult that is, right? So there's just a real difference in the amount of information that's available in the male and female side. Nevertheless, we have shown, others have shown, that your exposures do affect your reproductive function. I did a study, for example, on drinking water quality and miscarriage rates. And we found a big connection between the kinds of water that women drank and their miscarriage rates. There are other studies that have looked at EDCs in relation to endometriosis and fibroids. And just a week ago, I think, there was a Swedish study, it was a really amazing study, where they looked at women undergoing C-section. And the reason they used those women is because then they could be inside, because they have made surgical incisions.

So they were able to get a little bit of tissue, and they related the body burden of those women to the number of eggs they had remaining. Wow, interesting. Really amazing, right? Yeah. But, um, very, very impressive. So do you think that, cause I know that this is affecting testosterone levels in men, but we're also seeing really high rates of PCOS in women, which is actually higher androgens in their body. Is that because of the phthalates and all these other chemicals? I actually can't point you to the specific chemicals right now, because I can think of it. We're related to complicated story, but it's definitely hormonal. And by the way, women with PCOS who have, like you said, higher testosterone, give birth to girls that have a longer taint AGD.

Oh, Yeah. So that's just to indicate that that measure reflects a change in expected testosterone. So males expect a lot, and if there's not enough, there is too short. And females don't expect much at all. And if there's too much, which is in the case of PCOS, then they'll get longer, more masculine

AGD. So yeah, it's all about the hormones. I mean, it really is. And I feel like in, you know, the last like 20 years, we've started to really understand the importance of hormones, you know, because I feel like for the longest time we were just like, oh, hormones are what happened to a woman during her cycle. And they were just kind of brushed aside, you know, and now all of a sudden we're realizing the importance and the role that they play in just overall health. This is not even about fertility. This is like our vitality.

Right. Which is really concerning. So what can people do? Like, what can we do to lessen our exposure? What are the things that you personally are most concerned about and things that people can take out of their diet and help lessen their exposure? Well, first of all, I think they can buy Countdown the book. Yes. Of course, I'm going to say that, right? But I'm saying that because we have several chapters devoted specifically to things that people can do.

And there's things that people can do about their lifestyle choices and also things they can do about reducing their chemical exposure. We've talked about some of them. So they can be careful about phthalates in their kitchen. That's a very good place to start. Maybe walk around and kind of try to swap out plastics for ceramic and metal and glass. And then they could go to their bathrooms and think about the phthalates in there, maybe the shower curtain, but also in their products. And so the product choices are difficult because their labels are not helpful. Things are not listed. And also who can read all that, right?

So, but there are, in the book, we talk, we give some resources and some websites where people can go. They can put the product name into the, you know, the search and they can look and see how that product is rated. For example, by environmental working group is one really good place to go.

But I think more than the specific products, I think what people have to do is sort of see the world through a different lens. They have to look around and see that everything that comes into them could be endocrine disrupting. That sounds a little paranoid. And certainly you can't spend your whole time doing that. But I think just being aware that there are more exposures than people know about. And so we talked about, I mentioned fragrance, try to minimize your exposure to fragrance. I would never plug in a wall freshener. I would never hang a little pine cone in my, you know, a little pine tree in my car. I would buy unfragranced laundry products and to the extent possible cleaning products. And I've gotten to the point where I can't actually be on a plane next to somebody who's used a lot of fragrance. I've just gotten really, really sensitive to it. So try to increase your sensitivity and stay away from fragrance products. Dust is important. We

have a lot of exposure through dust. So you can leave your shoes at the door. That's a good practice anyway. And then use a HIPAA filter for vacuuming. Let's see what else. And then your pans, your cooking pans. Yeah, you want to avoid anything that's nonstick. So because those are covered with Teflon or other PFAS chemicals that are not good for us. Try not to buy things in tin cans unless the manufacturer designates it as,

well, I should say bisphenol-free. They say BPA-free, which is a little misleading because there are other bisphenols and bisphenol A. Um, and you want to avoid, um, water repellent products. So in water repellent jackets and so on, there are, um, these PFAS chemicals, which are also concerning. Um, and yeah, don't handle those cash register receipts if you can avoid it. I just don't take them or I say, send it to my phone because most cash register receipts have a lot of BPA in them actually, which is surprising. So those are some hints. I have an individual question because I have a lot of friends that use these. Are you concerned about the coffee machines that have little pods? Like I know the pods themselves are plastic, but then on top of that, on an internal level, when it's pulling the hot water through plastic pieces. I, I don't know about

that. You don't. Okay. I wouldn't avoid it for that reason. I think there's better ways to make coffee, but that's my own. Agreed. But I always get concerned because I see it being pulled through all these plastic pieces and it's heated water. And so that was a big. No, I think it's a good reason to, you know, good question. Yeah. Something somebody should look at. But I haven't seen anybody do that yet. Well, this has been so amazing.

Is there anything that we didn't cover that you think is really important that people need to know about this? There is one thing I should just mention, which is that people should be aware that this is not an equal opportunity problem, that there are communities that are more exposed, and those tend to be the disadvantaged communities. They have higher exposure. They can't find that unprocessed food, which we're recommending they eat. Maybe it's not even in a close grocery store, and they can't afford organic, and maybe they can't afford to make the medical changes necessary. Maybe assisted reproduction, if you had to go that route, is very unaffordable for many people. So I think that we just have to be aware that this is a problem for everybody, but that the answers are not equally available for everybody. Yeah. Yeah. That's a really great point. So I want to ask you a question that I ask everyone

before we get off this call. What are some of your personal health non-negotiables that can be anything from you have to meditate every day, or there's certain, um, guidelines that you have with your diet. Does anything that really helps you maintain your health in your everyday life? Exercise. It's a good one. I would say, you know, the days I don't get some exercise, I don't feel good about myself. And, and you, we could take that to an added level that sweating will help you get all those, hopefully the phthalates that you've been exposed to. Yeah. It helps get rid of all that.

So cool. Well, thank you so much. This has been such an amazing conversation and I think it's going to be really, um, it's really great for my, my audience to be exposed to this. So we can do better. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to talk to you and your audience. Yeah, thank you so much. Thanks for listening to today's episode of the Real Foodology podcast. If you liked this episode, please leave a review in your podcast app to let me know. This is a resident media production produced by Drake Peterson and edited by Chris McCone.

The theme song is called Heaven by the amazing singer Georgie, spelled with a J. Love you guys so much. See you next week. It makes me down, down, but I try. So if you're not gonna like me, at least I know I am for them. My time won't be wasted anymore.