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How do these chemicals get into the body and into the sperm/urine? If it's a matter of controlling what we eat, then hitting the gym isn't enough. We'll have t

How do these chemicals get into the body and into the sperm/urine? If it's a matter of controlling what we eat, then hitting the gym isn't enough. We'll have to curtail and adjust diets as best as we can, start being more careful around what sprays/treatments are used in vegetables and what anti/pro biotics the animals are fed with. We'll need stricter nutritional breakdown on this. We might even need to cut out certain foods if, by default, they are harmful to us past a certain quantity. We will have to switch from using the plastics we use in bottles and food storage containers to safer ones. Would fasting help here, even? If it's a matter of quality of air, we'll need to install better indoor filters (assuming we spend most of our time indoors). Outdoor air pollution is something we can't really solve on a dime, so to speak, as it would need greater intervention by Big Government et al to put into motion (good luck with this). So we'll have to do the best we can on our own, limited budgets, that we can to reduce the impact. For those who can afford it, living in an over all healthier outdoor-air-quality place is the way to go. Does it permeate from/through the clothes and through the skin? Feel free to add more of this sort of thing as a reply. At this point, having seen what I've seen, all bets are off that anyone other than ourselves will actually lift a finger to solve this, so we'll have to do it by ourselves, for ourselves. So keep lifting.

filoeleven 4y ago
I expect endocrine disrupters to play a big role in low sperm counts, low testosterone, increases obesity, specific cancers, probably many other things. They have outsized effects at very low levels, and we aren’t very good at regulating exposure to them. See for example the whole BPA thing (along with many other plastics), PFAS, etc.
- klipt 4y ago
  And as soon as BPA was discouraged companies switched to the close analog BPS which hadn't been proven harmful yet.
  - filoeleven 4y ago
    Yep. And a cursory search, because I hadn’t heard of this one, shows that BPS also has pretty significant effects on animals that are not humans. Maybe we’re special though! I’ve read that the EU is more proactive about banning chemicals: companies there have to prove that they are safe for humans, vs the US where companies can go wild unless and until the chemicals are proven to be unsafe for humans. I don’t know if that’s true though; I haven’t looked deeply into it.
screye 4y ago
> If it's a matter of quality of air Should be fairly easy to check for correlations across neighboring urban vs rural regions.
schiffern 4y ago
> How do these chemicals get into the body I suspect an under-appreciated source of BPA and BPS is thermal ("receipt") paper. One receipt can contain 1000x as much BPA as a plastic-lined can[0], which is absorbed through the skin (especially when using hand sanitizer) or transferred to the mouth[1]. They can also contaminate objects in direct contact — cash, coins, wallets, clothing, food packaging, etc. The official assumptions used to calculate the public's "typical exposure" are laughable[2]: > For example, the European Food Safety Authority’s (EFSA) exposure model estimates one handling event per day for adolescents and adults as typical exposures, and 4.6 handling events per day as high exposures; each exposure was anticipated to last 10 seconds. EFSA also estimates that average exposure involves handling by three fingertips on one hand, and high exposure comprises handling by three fingertips on both hands (6 fingers total). One behavioral change individuals can do is carry an envelope for receipts, and ask cashiers to place them directly in the envelope. If the cashier asks why, spread the word! Suggest that they ask their employer switch to non-phenol paper that doesn't contain BPA or BPS. [0] https://www.pca.state.mn.us/green-chemistry/bpa-thermal-paper https://www.pca.state.mn.us/green-chemistry/bpa-thermal-pape... [1] https://www.ewg.org/research/bpa-coats-cash-register-receipts https://www.ewg.org/research/bpa-coats-cash-register-receipt... [2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5453537/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5453537/

filoeleven 4y ago

I expect endocrine disrupters to play a big role in low sperm counts, low testosterone, increases obesity, specific cancers, probably many other things. They have outsized effects at very low levels, and we aren’t very good at regulating exposure to them. See for example the whole BPA thing (along with many other plastics), PFAS, etc.

klipt 4y ago
And as soon as BPA was discouraged companies switched to the close analog BPS which hadn't been proven harmful yet.
- filoeleven 4y ago
  Yep. And a cursory search, because I hadn’t heard of this one, shows that BPS also has pretty significant effects on animals that are not humans. Maybe we’re special though! I’ve read that the EU is more proactive about banning chemicals: companies there have to prove that they are safe for humans, vs the US where companies can go wild unless and until the chemicals are proven to be unsafe for humans. I don’t know if that’s true though; I haven’t looked deeply into it.

screye 4y ago

> If it's a matter of quality of air Should be fairly easy to check for correlations across neighboring urban vs rural regions.

schiffern 4y ago

> How do these chemicals get into the body I suspect an under-appreciated source of BPA and BPS is thermal ("receipt") paper. One receipt can contain 1000x as much BPA as a plastic-lined can[0], which is absorbed through the skin (especially when using hand sanitizer) or transferred to the mouth[1]. They can also contaminate objects in direct contact — cash, coins, wallets, clothing, food packaging, etc. The official assumptions used to calculate the public's "typical exposure" are laughable[2]: > For example, the European Food Safety Authority’s (EFSA) exposure model estimates one handling event per day for adolescents and adults as typical exposures, and 4.6 handling events per day as high exposures; each exposure was anticipated to last 10 seconds. EFSA also estimates that average exposure involves handling by three fingertips on one hand, and high exposure comprises handling by three fingertips on both hands (6 fingers total). One behavioral change individuals can do is carry an envelope for receipts, and ask cashiers to place them directly in the envelope. If the cashier asks why, spread the word! Suggest that they ask their employer switch to non-phenol paper that doesn't contain BPA or BPS. [0] https://www.pca.state.mn.us/green-chemistry/bpa-thermal-paper https://www.pca.state.mn.us/green-chemistry/bpa-thermal-pape... [1] https://www.ewg.org/research/bpa-coats-cash-register-receipts https://www.ewg.org/research/bpa-coats-cash-register-receipt... [2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5453537/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5453537/