|
Endocrine Disrupters and the Pill
- Introduction
- How EDs Work
- Our Stolen Future
- Drugs in the Environment
-
Examples of EDs
- Government Testing
- Laws
- The Pill as an ED
- History of the Pill
- Case Study: Coastal Waters
- Case Study: Fish
- Case Study: Men in Italy
- Solutions
- What you can do!
- Further Information
Comments & questions to:
khornbach@macalester.edu
|
 |
How Endocrine Disrupters Work
From the name its obvious what endocrine disrupters affect, the
endocrine system, which is made up of glands throughout the body. This
system regulates metabolism, blood sugar levels, growth, functions of
the reproductive system, and development of the brain and nervous
system. There are three main components to the endocrine system:
glands, hormones, and receiver cells. The system functions when a nerve
cell signals to an endocrine gland that there is some work to be done.
This may be in response to the need to grow, a change in temperature,
or the ingestion of food needing to be metabolized. Basically,
something needs to happen and then the nerve cell will respond. The
endocrine gland responds by releasing hormones that carry instructions
to a certain cell, which can carry out the necessary function to react
to the initial change. The hormone must then bond with the cell and
relay the information it is carrying so that the function is carried
out. 
EDs disrupt this natural flow. They can function in
several ways, over stimulating, under stimulating, or simply telling
the body to do something which is not necessary at a certain time. EDs
can function in several ways to disrupt the endocrine system. The most
simple and earliest discovered are EDs that mimic and bind to hormone
receptor cells instead of the actual hormone. This is the version we
will focus on, as the later case studies will look at an ED which
functions this way. This can cause the body to over-respond to the ED
or respond at the wrong time. EDs can over stimulate the body's growth
hormone, causing increased muscle mass. They can convince the body to
produce insulin when it is not needed. Certain EDs are actually meant
to suppress or promote certain hormones, such as DES, and therefore can
cause these reactions when not desired. Endocrine disrupters send mixed
signals to the body, causing it to produce the wrong hormones. This is
especially worrisome in developing animals and peoples, because of the
importance of hormones in the development stages of life. As discussed
later, Colborn found that children of
women who took DES during their pregnancies often suffered serious side
effects later in life. EDs are a serious risk as they work within the
body to undo its very basic functions. Exposure to EDs can happen any
number of ways. DES was actually given to women forever altering the
way that their children would live. However, the changes that Colborn
notes in the animal populations and the problem of biomagnification
points out a slightly scarier point, EDs are in our environment and
could be affecting you right now.
Information on Endocrine System and EDs from: Tulane University and Our Stolen Future
|
Last updated: 5/2/2006
|
