BPA Tied To Impotence In Men

Yahoo! News:

Exposure to high levels of BPA significantly raised the risk of sexual dysfunction, including impotence and low sex drive, among Chinese factory workers, a new study has found.

Read the whole story: Yahoo! News

Comments

[LarryMatt]

As you can see from the article, the lobbyist for the industry are kicking into action. Even university spokesmen are for sale. Does this remind you of the last 50 years with the tobacco industry.

We discovered in the 1930's that BPA was a synthetic estrogen. We have known for over two decades that women were increasingly staring at death from breast cancer that have been proven to be a product of alteration of the estrogen in women. Now that we learn that men are effected, we might have some action in Congress or at the FDA.

Please read this article from David Case at Fast Company. It explains fully how our corporate government is bought and sold. The same firms are involved in this as were with the tobacco industry.

http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/132/the-real-story-on-bpa.html?page=0%2C0

[avicenna]

It would be important to point out that BPA metabolism (i.e. breakdown and secretion) is impaired in men (or people with high androgens) as the enzyme responsible for modifiying it for secretion is influenced by the presence of androgens. Thus, BPA tends to build up in tissues of men in higher levels - and chronic low dose exposure would inevitably have endocrine disruption effects. There is also significant evidence that exposure in utero to BPA has epigenitic effects on the developing embryo. This begs the question - do false statements made by industry reps that have life-altering potential leave them open to liability?

[RMankovitz]

While the link between BPA and impotence is a serious issue, the link between chemicals from the plastics industry and the disappearance of human males is really troubling. Below is a description of, and a link to a documentary on this issue. Note: you might find this documentary to be very disturbing and incredibly sad.

The Disappearing Male is a CBC documentary about one of the most important, and least publicized, issues facing the human species: the toxic threat to the male reproductive system. The last few decades have seen steady and dramatic increases in the incidence of boys and young men suffering from genital deformities, low sperm count, sperm abnormalities and testicular cancer. At the same time, boys are now far more at risk of suffering from ADHD, autism, Tourette's syndrome, cerebral palsy, and dyslexia. The Disappearing Male takes a close and disturbing look at what many doctors and researchers now suspect are responsible for many of these problems: a class of common chemicals that are ubiquitous in our world. Found in everything from shampoo, sunglasses, meat and dairy products, carpet, cosmetics and baby bottles, they are called "hormone mimicking" or "endocrine disrupting" chemicals and they may be starting to damage the most basic building blocks of human development. See:

http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=7530701744597358451&ei=ndU-Sc-KFZ-QiQL369XeBQ&q=the+disappearing+male#

Roy Mankovitz, Director
http://www.MontecitoWellness.com

[RationalDubSteppa]

Hmm interesting but I have some questions.

1) Are they any links to any studies done with blind and double blind exposures?
2) If so do they studies show that "Endorcrine Disrupting" is the direct cause or is in conjunction with environment
3) Has the study produce a list of chemicals, each with solid data pointing to Endocrine Disrupting ie DDT or Polychlorinated Biphenylis( Hope I spelled the right... it's been a while)

My last question is about the conditions mentioned, ADHD, autism, Tourette's, cerebral palsy...etc. All of these conditions have one element in common and that is that they are tied intimately to the nervous system. Being that the Endocrine system effects hormones are you saying that their is a casual link between the hormone production in males and how it effects their nervous system during development? If so where can I read more about this( Medical or Bio-Chemistry Journals are preferred) Thanks in advance.

[RMankovitz]

Those are good questions that you might want to raise with the researchers mentioned in the documentary. As I understand it, this is a hypothesis at the moment, subject to verification by future research.

In the meantime, considering animal studies, it would seem prudent to eliminate endocrine disruptors from the environment.

[avicenna]

In reference to your distinction between hormones and their influence on the nervous system, the effect of their activity is profound. Sex steroids have both direct and indirect effects on CNS activity. It is well known that "aggressiveness" and risk taking is influenced by androgens, verbal fluency by estrogens - hormone receptors are widely expressed in the developing brain and temporal signalling by sex steroids during critical periods shape the way brain organizes information and even influences "sexual dimorphic" behaviour. This is shown by correlational studies that found that BPA exposure in utero resulted in greater aggressive behaviour in girls. Beyond this, BPA has experimentally been shown to induce epigenetic changes on the developing embryo - suggesting long-lasting influence.

[shthar]

I told you it wasn't my fault!

[cheeriogirl]

You made me laugh!