What are environmental hormones?
The female sex hormone, estrogen, controls the growth of cells. It does this by attaching itself to proteins called estrogen receptors throughout the body. There are also estrogens in the environment that can attach themselves to these same proteins. Environmental estrogens block the body's estrogens and may cause health problems. Environmental estrogens are all around us in what we eat, drink, the air we breathe, in things we use at home, and at work. They include things such as:
- DDT and kepone—chemicals once found in pesticides. They break down slowly in the environment and may stay for years in soil and water.
- Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB’s)—a mixture of chemicals once used as coolants in electrical devices. They are still in the air.
- DES or diethylstilbestrol—until banned in the 1970s, used to prevent miscarriage in women. Some daughters of women who took DES during pregnancy have had reproductive problems and rarely, vaginal or cervical cancer, when they reached childbearing age.
These chemicals may play a role in causing cancers of the breast, uterus, and ovaries; endometriosis; and uterine fibroids.
