This article originally appeared on
AlterNet.
It is no secret that our bodies and our environment are swimming in
estrogen. Puberty is occurring as early as eight years old in children
and recently babies in
China have
developed breasts. Frogs and fish are becoming “intersex” and losing
their male characteristics from excreted estrogens in the environment
and waterways. In England, the
Daily Mail ran
a feature on the phenomenon of women’s bra cup sizes increasing
independent of their weights, likely because of environmental and
livestock chemicals. The website
Green Prophet speculated
that women in the Middle East are not yet experiencing cup inflation
because their environments have not become similarly estrogenized.
While
many people are fans of big boobs, the larger issue of feminized women,
men and wildlife should be a wakeup call. Estrogen is blamed for
everything from breast and prostate cancer and other hormone-linked
conditions to obesity, sexual dysfunction, dropping sperm counts and
depression and mood disorders.
In studies of women given
prescribed hormone drugs, estrogen was linked to lung cancer, ovarian
cancer, skin cancer, gall bladder cancer, cataracts urinary incontinence
and joint degeneration.
Most of us know we unwittingly get
synthetic estrogens (endocrine disrupters) from plastics like BPA,
petroleum based products, detergents, cosmetics, furniture, carpeting,
thermal receipts and on our food from agriculture chemicals like
pesticides, herbicides and fungicides (a good reason to buy organic).
But we also get a lot of “natural” estrogens from foods we may eat every
day. While these “phytoestrogens” are not as bad as synthetic
chemicals, women who are plagued with PMS, fibrocystic disease and water
retention, or who are at risk for breast cancer and men who do not want
to be feminized may want to use them moderately.
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Here are some “good” and “bad” foods that have more estrogen than you may realize—or want.
1. Flax
Flax and especially flax meal has the image of being a healthy superfood. But when you look at a
list of
the top phytoestrogen-containing foods, flax and flax products are at
the very top. A hundred grams of flax packs an astounding 379,380
micrograms of estrogen compared with 2.9 micrograms for a fruit like
watermelon. Flax is now widely found in baked goods like bread, bagels
and muffins, snack foods, cereals, pasta, drink mixes and used in
poultry, swine, beef and dairy
cow feed.
It
became a popular alternative to fish oil which had been promoted to
improve mood, the immune systems and to prevent heart attacks and
strokes, especially as concerns about mercury risks in some fish
surfaced. A tablespoon of flaxseed oil, which contains alpha-linolenic
acid (also found in walnuts and some oils) is “worth” about
700 milligrams of
the omega-3 found in fish oil says the Harvard Medical School Family
Health Guide. Flax also provides fiber, a substance lacking in our
over-processed diets. But there is another reason it may not be the
superfood it appears besides its estrogen wallop. Like so many edible
plants today, genetically modified versions of flax are
rampant, spreading and rarely labeled. Buyer beware.
2. Soy
What
is the second highest phytoestrogen-containing food in most lists? Soy,
which packs 103,920 micrograms of estrogen per 100 grams. Low in
calories and with no cholesterol, soy has been a mainstay protein of
many cultures for centuries and is considered nature’s perfect
alternative to meat by many vegetarians and vegans. It has been hailed
as a “good” estrogen that could prevent breast cancer and serve as an
alternative for hormone replacement therapy, traditionally made from
pregnant mare urine.
Yet the bloom has partially
fallen off soy’s rose. Its possible cancer prevention properties were
called into question after some animal studies and groups like the
American Cancer Society found themselves defending its moderate use. Like flax, unlabeled GMO soybeans dominate the market and have been linked to
sterility and infant death in hamsters.
3. Other Legumes and Common Health Foods
Other
“healthy” foods like flax and soy may have more estrogen than you
think. Legumes like chickpeas (garbanzo beans) red beans, black-eyed
peas, green peas and split peas are also estrogenic and black
beans pack
5,330 micrograms of
estrogen per 100 grams. Hummus (from chickpeas) has 993 micrograms of
estrogen per 100 grams. How about the “healthful” seeds we think of as
mingled in trailmix? Sesame and sunflower seeds are among the highest of
all estrogenic foods. While their seeds are not a staple of most
people’s diets, their oils are widely used in processed and prepared
foods. A
site for women suffering
from the estrogen-linked endometriosis advises against sunflower oil as
well as safflower, cottonseed and canola oils and recommends only olive
or grapeseed oil.
Other ingredients that can amount to a side
dish of estrogen are alfalfa sprouts, licorice and the flavorings red
clover and fennel, sometimes found in teas. Food ingredients in personal
care products can also have estrogenic effects. Tea tree oil found in
some shampoos, soaps and lotions can enlarge the breasts of boys
reported
ABC news. And sore and tender breasts have
also been reported from using a shampoo with pomegranate.
4. Animal Products
On
most lists of products containing estrogen, animal products like milk
and beef are at the very bottom. Milk, for example, is said to provide
1.2 micrograms of estrogen per 100 grams. Unfortunately, most “research”
that assures the public that hormones used in meat production or milk
production (like Monsanto’s rBGH) result in less estrogen are funded by
Big Ag. Two features betray the
Big Ag-funded research —it
claims there is no difference between hormones that occur “naturally”
in the human body and synthetic hormones, and it claims there are no
residues of the latter. If synthetic hormones are so safe, why would we
mind residues? The European Union disagrees about the dangers and
boycotts US beef, which is swimming in the hormones oestradiol-17,
trenbolone acetate, zeranol and melengestrol.
As for “no residues,” a
scientific paper called
“Detection of Six Zeranol Residues in Animal-derived Food by
HPLC-MS/MS,” disputes the claim. Zeranol, an estrogen-like drug widely
used in US livestock production is especially controversial. “Our
laboratory has reported that long-term exposure to either Z [zeranol] or
E2 [estradiol-17β] can induce transformation of human breast epithelial
MCF-10A cells,” says a 2009 paper
in Anticancer Research.Translation:
it can contribute to breast cancer: “The proper evaluation of the
safety of Z [zeranol] is of both public health and
economic importance.”
Another paper reports
“breast irritation” in people exposed to nothing but the clothing of
those working around zeranol. This is an ingredient used in US meat?
A paper which appeared in
Science of the Total Environment examines the outbreak of precocious puberty and breast development of children in
Italy and Puerto Rico in
the late 1970s and 1980s and attributes the symptoms to zeranol-like
“anabolic estrogens in animal foods.” In both occurrences, the symptoms
disappeared when the hormone-laced food was removed. Zeranol is found in
meat, eggs and dairy products “through deliberate introduction of
zeranol into livestock to enhance meat production,” says the paper. It
is “banned for use in animal husbandry in the European Union and other
countries, but is still widely used in the US. Surprisingly, little is
known about the health effects of these mycoestrogens, including their
impact on puberty in girls, a period highly sensitive to estrogenic
stimulation.”
Martha Rosenberg frequently writes about the impact of
the pharmaceutical, food and gun industries on public health. Her work
has appeared in the Boston Globe, San Francisco Chronicle, Chicago
Tribune and other outlets
(Credit: Shutterstock / sima)
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