Xenoestrogens are man-made chemicals that can enter the body and mimic the effects of the female hormone estrogen.
Natural estrogens act with a larger molecule called a receptor, and once they do so, the biological activity associated with that hormone is turned on. You're basically flipping on a switch. Xenoestrogens fit in the same receptors that estrogen does and do the same thing that the natural hormone does. But in addition they can also turn-on more receptors — sometimes synergistically — making the effect of the estrogen or xenoestrogen more profound.
This article is a must-read for anyone who is concerned about their health. Xenoestrogens may be largely responsible for the rapid increase in cancer rates over the last 50-100 years, for the increasingly early onset of mensus in girls, for impotence in men, and a host of other health issues.
There have been plenty of studies showing a correlation between chemicals in the environment and the effects they have on the poor folks that are exposed to them. The earliest one I can think of is the one showing the women in Guatemala who were hitting puberty at 3-4 years old. They think this was caused by being exposed to tons of xenoestrogens.
One of the most recent articles, from just a couple years ago, showed that xenoestrogens can and do collect in our adipose tissue. Researchers took tissue samples from over 400 adults and 75% of the samples were found to have significant levels of xenoestrogens. DDT and its derivatives were present in 98.3% of the samples.
The scary thing is that, firstly, we're all carrying around xenoestrogens in our body fat, and second, it also showed us that different xenoestrogens act together synergistically to magnify their estrogenic properties. Basically the more you have, the more variety you'll have, and thus the more likely the xenoestrogens are going to pronounce themselves in different sorts of effects, from decreased sex drive to more awful things like cancer.
An added benefit of this article is that it debunks claims that the ban of DDT (a very harmful xenoestrogen) has resulted in millions of deaths. Michael Crichton is fond of making that claim as part of his rejection of the global warming science.
