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#12 How Endocrine Disruptors Could Be Affecting Your Hormone Health & Fertility
45 Plays2 months ago
The Bean Talk - Episode 12: How Endocrine Disruptors Could Be Affecting Your Hormone Health & Fertility
In this episode, Riannon dives into the sneaky world of endocrine disruptors and how they might be affecting your hormonal health and fertility. From everyday skincare products to household chemicals, these disruptors can have a surprising impact on your body’s natural balance.
Learn about the common sources of endocrine disruptors, how they interfere with your hormones, and actionable steps you can take to reduce exposure. Riannon also shares her top tips for detoxifying naturally, including antioxidant-rich foods, herbal support, and easy swaps for a lower-tox home.
If you're navigating your fertility journey or looking to support your overall hormonal health, this episode is packed with practical advice to get you started.
Connect with us on Instagram at @mungbean_health, or visit mungbeanhealth.com for more personalised support.
Brands mentioned in the episode:
YUKA App: https://yuka.io/en/
Moo Goo: https://moogoo.com.au/
Koala Eco: https://koala.eco/
Weleda: https://www.weleda.com.au/
Lust Minerals: https://lustminerals.com.au/
Discount code: MUNGBEAN15 for 15% off
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Transcript
Understanding Endocrine Disruptors
00:00:00
Speaker
Hello guys, I am jumping on to talk to you about endocrine disruptors and your hormone health and fertility and how these sneaky little buggers could be affecting or standing in the way of a healthy conception. I'm sure you've all heard of endocrine disruptors. Unfortunately, they are everywhere and continue to rise and rise. ah So bad for our fertility and our hormonal health.
00:00:29
Speaker
but there's lots we can do to navigate through this crazy world that we live in at the moment. Honestly, sometimes I'll sit there in the morning and I'll start to think about all of the things. When some women get up and men as well, but specifically women because everything's marketed towards us and what we should be using on our skin. And there's a thousand different lotions, one for your face, one for your delicontage, however you say that, decontage. That area, one for your leg moisturizer, deodorant, you know, your makeup, everything, all the things, nail polish.
00:01:07
Speaker
So many chemicals that one woman could get up. They said you could use over 300 chemicals on your skin before you leave for work that day. So you get up, you wash your face, you put on moisturizer, you use your serums, you then let that soak into your skin. There we go, starting to affect the hormone straight up. Then you put all your makeup on. Maybe you've been shopping at one of the big makeup shops and you've been putting it on your skin and cool, you're ready to go. You've used 50 different products.
00:01:36
Speaker
hormones don't love it.
Chemical Exposure in Daily Life
00:01:37
Speaker
Then we use our deodorant that we just got from Coles or Woolies and that starts to absorb into our skin. And then we put our perfume on, which we spray right on our thyroid, which then soaks in through the skin. Oh, and then I forgot we're using, we're wearing our Spandex or gym tights, which are made from plastic And we put those on and then we forget and we go, Oh, I forgot. I'm going to run back and put some hairspray on or some dry shampoo, go and spray some of that on, suck in all those chemicals. That's just a few. Okay. That is just a few of the things that we could be doing throughout the day. Some women are using so much more like seven or eight products just on their skincare routine or whatever it might be. Anyway.
00:02:28
Speaker
My point of that is that there's so many different chemicals in each of those items that then can be affecting our fertility and our hormones. So let's take it back a notch and talk about endocrine disruptors and what they actually are. So you would have heard them be referred to as endocrine disruptors or EDCs.
00:02:50
Speaker
Sometimes also they call them hormonally active agents. They're chemicals essentially that are affecting, they can be chemicals or compounds that are affecting or interfering with that endocrine system. So those hormones. We have so many around the house. So not to mention what we've just put all in our body before we left, but then we run downstairs and we're like, okay, it's time to clean up the kitchen. Let's use the unnatural soap in the sink. And then we're going to pop some dishwashing liquid in the dishwasher and then we are going to pass by the automatic room spray that sprays every 40 seconds and then as we walk out the door we blow out the candle that is full of fragrance and that is wafting around the house. You get the point, there's so much crap, so many chemicals that are everywhere and that's why when we talk about things like low tops which is a huge part of
00:03:47
Speaker
removing some of those endocrine disruptors. It's called low-tox, not no-tox because we want to minimise as much as we can, but we've also got to live. Like you go outside and then you start to suck in the car fumes. Okay, it's not ideal, but what? We're going to walk everywhere? No, we
Research and Evidence on Endocrine Disruptors
00:04:03
Speaker
can't. So we want to minimise what we have control of and start using more natural products.
00:04:08
Speaker
So the Endocrine Society have done a study and according to them, there is nearly 85,000 men made or human made chemicals in the world. And a thousand or more of those could be endocrine disruptors based on their unique properties that are affecting our hormones. Isn't that insane?
00:04:29
Speaker
85,000 and more than a thousand could be affecting our hormones and in turn our fertility. Being a fertility naturopath obviously that's where I'm coming from but there's so many other things that it can affect.
00:04:43
Speaker
So our EDCs are commonly found in and around the home and some other places that you might not be aware of. So obviously household cleaning products, whatever you've got under the sink, whatever you're using in the washing, spray and wipe, all of those and they they are strongly fragranced as well because you can smell them. Sometimes they smell great, sometimes they are really overpowering.
00:05:07
Speaker
but obviously that fragrance is coming from somewhere. The beauty product that you use, again back to shampoo and conditioner. Obviously makeup, face cleaning products, cleansing, body soaps and washes, deodorant, all those. Then you've also got plastic containers and plastic water bottles, um different things like epoxy resins that coat metal food cans, there's different types of food, soils, dusts that can it can be floating around in the air to affect us and fragrances as I touched on a little bit but perfumes, candles, air fresheners, a lot of deodorants have unnecessary and terrible fragrances in them.
00:05:50
Speaker
So these different types of EDCs can affect our hormones. So the EDCs are chemicals or mixtures of chemicals that interfere with the way the body's hormones work.
Health Impacts: A Focus on BPA
00:06:02
Speaker
Some of the EDCs act like hormone mimics and trick your body into thinking that they're hormones, while other EDCs block natural hormones from doing their job. Other EDCs can increase or decrease the levels of hormones in our blood by affecting how they're made broken down or stored in our body. And finally, other EDCs can change how sensitive our bodies are to different types of hormones. From a fertility perspective, BPA has been reported to be associated with female infertility. Indeed, BPA has been found to be more frequently detected in the infertile women and thus leading us to believe that it is possible that could be standing in the way of a natural conception for a lot of couples and that spontaneous fertility that we're looking for.
Strategies for Reducing Exposure
00:06:57
Speaker
Experimental studies suggested that prenatal, perinatal and postnatal exposure to BPAs can impair several steps of ovarian development, induce ovarian morphology rearrangement,
00:07:10
Speaker
and impair ovarian function, particularly follicular genesis, as well as can impair uterus morphology and function in female adults, animal and offspring. So that's what they have animal study there. It's a lot. It's a heavy thing to talk about. And when your mind really starts to run in all the different areas that this could be affecting, it can be overwhelming. So birth, it's okay. It's going to be okay.
00:07:38
Speaker
There are lots we can do to mitigate the exposure and help our body detoxify. Yes, our body naturally detoxifies on its own, but it gets so overworked that we need to give it a helping hand. Obviously minimizing chemicals, but also there's ways you can support it. So here's a couple of different ways that you can support yourself. Yes, on your fertility journey from minimizing, but also just anyone that's important for our hormones. so Eliminating the toxins is critical to reduce the hormone competition that's at hand. ah Herbs and nutrients to stimulate the detoxification pathways work to reduce the burden and that toxic load on the body. So we're just allowing that body, we're removing the exposure and then allowing that body and that liver to filter it out so we can give
00:08:27
Speaker
that liver a helping hand. Things like polyphenols and anti-inflammatory herbs can mitigate the pro-inflammatory effects of toxins and prevent toxin-induced damage because those little toxins, they're very nasty, they can be hanging out and causing a lot of issues. So we want to get them out and we want to do that without damage. We want to make sure that we're eating a diet rich in antioxidants, very rich in antioxidants, which is going to help with mitigating that oxidative stress that's present and supporting our entire health, including our fertility, antioxidants are very important. And then for those detoxification pathways, I've got a couple of favourites, definitely our beautiful Saint Mary sisal. Now do not self-prescribe because this might not be perfect for you in your case, but these are some things we use in clinic. Allow us to do that work for you or your naturopath to do that work for you to figure out what herbs
00:09:19
Speaker
or what nutrients best
Exploring Natural Alternatives
00:09:20
Speaker
for you. But some of my favorites is definitely St. Mary's Thistle. Not only is it antioxidant, it's really supportive of liver regeneration. Nacetyl cysteine or nac is really beautiful for that liver. Broccoli sprouts is great. A lot of different brands are now doing the broccoli seed, which works a little differently. So the broccoli sprouts are best here.
00:09:41
Speaker
Rosemary is another beautiful one. So even just including broccoli in your diet, rosemary in the diet can be really supportive. That cruciferous family is really nice for liver detoxification. So broccoli, cauliflower, rocket lettuce. There's heaps of others as well. Google cruciferous family.
00:10:02
Speaker
Salt Flushing is another one that we do in clinic. I only recommend that when you've been prescribed that from your practitioner. So making sure that you are getting the right advice there. There's also an app where you can scan different beauty products to see how healthy it is. The YUKA app, which is a really nice little way you can see how hectic things are and how many chemicals or rubbish is in there.
00:10:27
Speaker
and also doing an in-home environment clean swap. So swapping things out. So say, for instance, at the moment you're just using brands from the supermarket, I would recommend to look at more of a natural one. So for myself, I actually love the Koala Eco brand. I use that a lot in the kitchen and in the washing and in the bathrooms. We've also got that we use is the Pleasant State brand, which is a nice natural one. I love them as well.
00:10:54
Speaker
I'm just trying to think, obviously for makeup, I love using Lust Minerals. I think it's fabulous. And for body care, I do Moogoo as well, especially for the babies and Willeta. They're all nice natural brands that you'll find all over my house, which are just an easy way to reduce those chemicals. And I feel like also being a parent,
00:11:15
Speaker
It's also my duty to minimize them from my kids because when they get older, who knows what the world will be like then. So if I can help them to avoid them now, that should just get them that one step forward. So a lot you can do at home to support that exposure and to support your body to clear out any of that toxic burden. If you're needing extra support in this area or you're on your fertility journey, definitely reach out because we would love to support you.