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On the World Environment Day, Gandhi Bhavan, the auditorium attached to the Department of Environmental Sciences, University of Kerala had a pithy message resounding. Reverberating inside the hall and echoing in the minds of students and teachers gathered there was grave information on yet another debilitating environmental factor.
The talk by Dr. R.V. Thampan former Director of the Rajiv Gandhi Centre for Biotechnology and present Director of SAFI Institute of Advanced Studies, Malapppuram, Kerala had taken the attention of all listeners to a pertinent environmental menace of the present: Environmental Estrogens and their effects in the living world. The talk was part of the H. H. Maharani Sethu Parvathi Bayi Lecture of the University of Kerala. Really our Department was fortunate this year to get this dialogue by an eminent scientist like Dr. Thampan.
Environmental Estrogens: Unsolicited intruders
Interfering other's life or freedom is never a welcome habit. However Estrogens naturally or artificially produced in the environment badly affects our hormonal activities. Imagine how it would be if our neighbours intervene in our family matters – or else, countries interfering in each other's internal matters! The Environmental Estrogens have a number of synonyms (or sobriquets!) including xenoestrogens, endocrine disrupters, endocrine modulators and environment hormones and in a broader sense, 'Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals' or EDCs.
Men and beasts fall prey
Sex change – black magic by EEs
Another tale of sexual change came from the sewage outlets in England: male fishes there showed feminine characters, with their testes producing comparatively lower levels of motile sperms. Even some had low profile sperms in one of the testes and egg in the other. This may be mostly due to natural and synthetic estrogens and the alkylphenols deposited due to disintegration of household detergents and breakdown of plastic.
If to go by the realities unveiled by the lecture, environmental estrogens are found to play the same foul trick as HIV viruses do with human immune system. For example, Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals found heavily in the meats of seals and whales were found adversely affecting people along the Canada's arctic circles. Here people depend mainly on these marine food and are prone to poor immunity and cancer problems.
As the talk progressed towards a motivating conclusion, unfurled one after the other were the deteriorating fate of water fouls and seals amid a sea of environmental estrogens.
The talk by Dr. R.V. Thampan former Director of the Rajiv Gandhi Centre for Biotechnology and present Director of SAFI Institute of Advanced Studies, Malapppuram, Kerala had taken the attention of all listeners to a pertinent environmental menace of the present: Environmental Estrogens and their effects in the living world. The talk was part of the H. H. Maharani Sethu Parvathi Bayi Lecture of the University of Kerala. Really our Department was fortunate this year to get this dialogue by an eminent scientist like Dr. Thampan.
Environmental Estrogens: Unsolicited intruders
Interfering other's life or freedom is never a welcome habit. However Estrogens naturally or artificially produced in the environment badly affects our hormonal activities. Imagine how it would be if our neighbours intervene in our family matters – or else, countries interfering in each other's internal matters! The Environmental Estrogens have a number of synonyms (or sobriquets!) including xenoestrogens, endocrine disrupters, endocrine modulators and environment hormones and in a broader sense, 'Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals' or EDCs.
Chief culprits – chemical and non-chemical
Quite interestingly, Dr. Thampan called the compounds in our environment that generate EDCs as 'culprits'! Of course, it's difficult to find more moderate word to describe these elements that cause lasting agony to living beings. Fungi to Soybeans and Pesticides to Contraceptive pills come under this culprit group. If they are the chemical culprits, non chemical reasons like light waves, electromagnetic fields, and oxygen deficient environs also destabilize hormonal activities. For example, distorted estrogen and androgen levels are found in fish that survive in oxygen-poor water, Dr. Thampan said. Genistein of Soybeans, Resveratrol of the grape skin, Zearalanone found in fungi could evoke hormonal imbalances, it is proved. Endosulfan – the pesticide that has turned the life harrowing for the people of Kasaragode district in Kerala, has an estrogenic activity similar to DDT, Dr. Thampan pointed.
Quite interestingly, Dr. Thampan called the compounds in our environment that generate EDCs as 'culprits'! Of course, it's difficult to find more moderate word to describe these elements that cause lasting agony to living beings. Fungi to Soybeans and Pesticides to Contraceptive pills come under this culprit group. If they are the chemical culprits, non chemical reasons like light waves, electromagnetic fields, and oxygen deficient environs also destabilize hormonal activities. For example, distorted estrogen and androgen levels are found in fish that survive in oxygen-poor water, Dr. Thampan said. Genistein of Soybeans, Resveratrol of the grape skin, Zearalanone found in fungi could evoke hormonal imbalances, it is proved. Endosulfan – the pesticide that has turned the life harrowing for the people of Kasaragode district in Kerala, has an estrogenic activity similar to DDT, Dr. Thampan pointed.
Vegetarians won't be happy to see the face of this truth: many plants produce chemicals called phytoestrogens that mimic or interact with hormone signals in animals! Dr.Thampan's projector slides said that at least 20 of such phytohormones have been identified in at least 300 plants from over 16 plant families! Garlic, soybeans, date, pomegranates, cherries and apples become villains – at least in front of this fact. Solace is that phytoestrogens are comparatively weaker. Another grave reality unveiled during the dialogue was that infants who are more used to soy products are 10 time more vulnerable to phytoestrogens than vegetarian adults. [In the U.S., 15% of babies are fed on soy formula.]
Men and beasts fall prey
Do men only fall prey to phytoestrogens? Not really. A number of grazers that feed on grasses, particularly the Australian sheep were found to have reproductive defects infertility problems owing to intake of phytoestrogens. Attributing to Setchell et. al., Dr. Thampan told a real story of captivated cheetahs that had the incidence of infertility while soy food only was provided. Normalcy was reinstated among them when soy was replaced by corn!
Organometal tributyltin (TBT), a constituent of special paints used to get rid of barnacles that accumulate beneath ships and boats, has caused development of male reproductive organ in mollusks along the coastal areas. As a result, population of marine snails has decreased considerably along the coasts of Europe, North America and Asia.
Sex change – black magic by EEs
Another tale of sexual change came from the sewage outlets in England: male fishes there showed feminine characters, with their testes producing comparatively lower levels of motile sperms. Even some had low profile sperms in one of the testes and egg in the other. This may be mostly due to natural and synthetic estrogens and the alkylphenols deposited due to disintegration of household detergents and breakdown of plastic.
Jump to Illinois and there we find another startling fact: frog population is on a serious threat owing to increased occurrence frogs with testes carrying eggs. Dr. Thampan underlined a very significant point: Frogs have very permeable skin and are comparatively sensitive to changes in water and environment making them more vulnerable to the environmental estrogen attack.
Learning late
Surprisingly, it took long 40 years for the scientists to understand the bad effects of a drug called diethyl stilbestrol (DES) popular till then. Mothers who had been taking DES during pregnancy gave birth to sons and daughters, who later met with severe cases of reproductive disorders. The dioxin catastrophe that shook the world during June 1976 in Italy also threw generations into a dismally deteriorated health state.
Surprisingly, it took long 40 years for the scientists to understand the bad effects of a drug called diethyl stilbestrol (DES) popular till then. Mothers who had been taking DES during pregnancy gave birth to sons and daughters, who later met with severe cases of reproductive disorders. The dioxin catastrophe that shook the world during June 1976 in Italy also threw generations into a dismally deteriorated health state.
A synonym to HIV?
If to go by the realities unveiled by the lecture, environmental estrogens are found to play the same foul trick as HIV viruses do with human immune system. For example, Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals found heavily in the meats of seals and whales were found adversely affecting people along the Canada's arctic circles. Here people depend mainly on these marine food and are prone to poor immunity and cancer problems.As the talk progressed towards a motivating conclusion, unfurled one after the other were the deteriorating fate of water fouls and seals amid a sea of environmental estrogens.
Control in all phases of life
To root out environmental estrogens from the world may not be possible. But to adopt proactive measures to curb their multiplication is possible for sure. In short, the message sent to humanity by environmental estrogens is this: learn to have an ecological prudence and self-control in all our activities – from eating to medicating.
- Prepared by Akhila S. Nair based on a talk made by Dr. R.V.Thampan
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