Many chemicals in plastics, pesticides, insecticides, sunscreen, and other consumer items contain substances that are similar in structure to the estrogen molecule. These foreign substances can also bind to the estrogen receptor and overstimulate it. They are called endocrine disrupters.
In this case, an endocrine disrupter that has a similar structure to estrogen can bind to the same sites that a natural estrogen binds to. And these endocrine disrupters bind for a much longer time period than natural estrogens do.
Natural estrogens have a very short half-life in the body — usually less than three hours. That means half of estrogen is cleared from the body in about three hours of taking it or producing it. Endocrine disrupters are often referred to as persistent organic pollutants (POPs). As the term “persistent” suggests, these substances break down very slowly in our bodies and in the environment. In fact, some of the POPs are not biodegradable in the environment or our bodies.
The continual stimulation of estrogen receptors by POP chemicals that resemble natural estrogens is all too common. It is also partially responsible for the overstimulation of breast and uterine tissues that is causing glandular architecture problems like cysts and cancer. In addition, farm animals are often overfed synthetic estrogen to fatten them up for slaughter, thus enhancing the profitability of the animals.
Humans then ingest these endocrine disrupters when we eat conventionally raised animals. This is one of the reasons organic food products are more healthy for you.
Not only are we suffering from a cancer epidemic, we are suffering an obesity epidemic. Two-thirds of Americans are overweight and more than one-third are obese. Even children are suffering from obesity in ever-increasing numbers.
One of the major drivers of the obesity epidemic is the overexposure to POP chemicals, some of which stay in the body simply because the body has no detoxification mechanism for them. In this case, the body tries its best to store the toxic substance in fat tissue, which can lead to weight gain. And it can be difficult to lose that weight because the body does not want those toxic substances released into the bloodstream with weight loss.
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