Chemicals in the environment can disrupt your hormones

Recent research reported by UC Berkeley molecular toxicologist, Tyrone Hayes, suggests that a popular herbicide, Atrazine, caused alarming effects when frogs were exposed to very low doses. Namely, Atrazine damages the immune system and changes the sex of the frogs from male to female!

Atrazine is a top selling weed killer in the United States and in other parts of the world. It can travel about 600 miles from the site of its use via groundwater.  And, of course, with the way that produce is shipped all around the world, many of us living here are being exposed to Atrazine without even knowing it.

However, endocrine disruptors exist in other chemicals and even foods.  Drugs such as Prozac and birth control pills are eliminated in people’s urine and can be found in fish that people end up eating down the road.  Also, soy and other phytoestrogen-containing foods can affect your endocrine system, not to mention plastics and bis-phenol A.

The best way to reduce your exposure to such damaging chemicals is to buy local produce, buy produce that is in season, and buy organic when possible.