"Alkylphenol Endocrine Disruptors and Allergies"
In my video "Preventing Childhood Allergies",
I noted a study in Japan that found higher maternal intake of meat
during pregnancy was significantly associated with about
3 times the odds of both suspected and physician-diagnosed eczema.
They suggest that certain components of meat may affect the fetal immune system.
But what about the moms themselves?
Seasonal allergies have exploded in Japan in the past few decades,
starting with the first reported case in 1964
and now affecting millions every year.
We've seen rising prevalence of allergic diseases
around the industrialized world in past decades,
but perhaps nothing quite this dramatic.
Researchers suggested profound changes
in the Japanese diet may have played a role.
Over the latter half of the century
total meat, fish, and milk intake rose hundreds of percent in Japan,
so researchers decided to look into dietary meat and fat intake
and the prevalence of these seasonal pollen allergies.
No association with overall fat,
but higher meat intake was associated significantly
with an increased prevalence of disease.
So maybe it was the saturated fat?
No, that didn't seem to be it.
So, what other constituents in meat may be to blame?
Well, there are the cooked meat carcinogens, the heterocyclic amines,
polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, and nitrosamines.
But who knows?
This new review, however, raised an intriguing possibility.
There's a class of industrial pollutants called alkylphenols,
recognized as common toxic endocrine disrupting chemicals
that tend to accumulate in the human body
and may be the associated with the adverse effects of allergic diseases.
A variety of studies have shown how they may exacerbate allergen-induced inflammation,
suggesting that alkylphenol exposure may influence
the onset, progression, and severity of allergic diseases.
These toxic xenoestrogens can be found in human breast milk,
stored up in our body fat, coursing through our urine, our bloodstream,
and even in the umbilical cord blood going to our babies.
How do did it get there? How do people get exposed?
Through contaminated food.
It all goes back to a famous study
about the reduction of penis size and testosterone levels
in alligators living in a contaminated environment.
I don't know what you all do for a day job,
but these researchers observed that a population of juvenile alligators
living on one lake in Florida exhibited a significantly smaller penis size
and lower blood concentrations of testosterone compared to animals on some different lake.
The most important difference between the two lakes
was that lake "stubby" was fed by relatively polluted waters.
They attributed the "short penis phenomenon"
to estrogen-mimicking (xenoestrogenic) environmental metabolites of DDT
that still pollute the Earth.
This seminal work introduced the concept that endocrine disrupters,
environmental xenoestrogens, might result in feminization of exposed male animals.
And that's just the shriveled tip of the iceberg.
Since then endocrine-disrupting chemicals have been implicated
in the dramatic rise over the last 50 years of diseases like
breast cancer, prostate cancer, testicular cancer, diabetes,
obesity, decreased fertility, such as dropping normal sperm counts.
Not to mention genital birth defects such as
penile malformations, preterm birth, neurobehavioral disorders in children
linked to thyroid disruption,
and earlier breast development in young girls.
Because genes do not change fast enough to explain these increases,
environmental causes must be involved.
Since our greatest exposure to the environment is through our gut,
it's no surprise that our greatest exposure
to these endocrine-disrupting chemicals is through diet.
But which foods?
I'll cover that next.