Dear astute and patient raw-food friends:

There is more about plant estrogen mimics before I review the info on
chemical hormone look-alikes which  scramble us up.

Firstly, I don't think I made it clear that the body can, indeed, break down
and excrete plant estogens. Over millions of years, individuals which were
unable to do this were weeded out. But tho we have devised ways to co-exist
with them, this doesn't mean they have been harmless. But clearly some
resistance was passed along. The problem is our lack of solid info on much
of the way we are affected. Just what have they caused over the ages? The
matter of dose is critical, and depending on your age, sex, hormonal status,
the effects can be wildly variable. It matters whether you are a man or a
woman; a post-menopausal woman or one still in her reproductive years; an
adult, a child, or a fetus in the womb.

Experiments have shown a possibly altered sexual differentiation in the
brain of rat pups when exposed early in life.Lack of ovulation, lack of
mounting behavior, reduced sperm count, etc. Yes, we seem to have dealt with
and survived these effects as a race: but what happens when these
exquisitely balanced matters do get skewed? And what happens when we are
bombarded with man made chemical hormone lookalikes at the same time?

Since 1950 at least 51 synthetic chemicals which disrupt the endocrine
system in one way or another have become ubiquitous on the planet.. This
includes large chemical families such as 209 PCB's, 75 dioxins, and 135
furans with many documented effects. We have no evolutionary history of
dealing with them.They resist breakdown in the body and some persist for
years.. What is this chronic exposure doing to us?

Plastics in microwaves is a no-no, some canned foods are lined with plastic
which leaches into the food, in fact, it's hard to find foods not wrapped in
plastics with their hormone disrupters.

Claude Hughes (previous post) is concerned about giving babies soy milk,
which contains estogenic compounds.A common fungicide on fruit, given to a
pregnant rats, joins with the receptor but doesnt turn on the biological
response for testosterone, and they become hermaphrodites.

There has been a steady increase of breast cancer of 1% a year since World
War II. The adrenals are damaged, the thyroid, too, from hormone mimics.
These effects ripple thru the body into other areas.Depressed thyroid levels
have been linked to breast cancer just as increased  estrogen exposure has.

A statement in the book about fat storage of DDE, a form of DDT, is
chilling--it is stored the longest of all, and has the opposite effect of
accelerating the breakdown of hormones, leaving the body short on
testosterone and estrogen, and other steroids, too. A developing fetus is
extremely sensitive to these changes--too little is just as bad as too
much.I am concerned in light of info here that detoxing with durian or
fasting might be freeing these to wreak furthur havoc with our endocrine
system.But OTH, how elseto get rid of them? (only to be replaced tomorrow.)

Animal studies have been under fire as not meaningful to humans. Earl Gray,
a reproductive toxicologist for the Research Triangle Park in NC, says about
the hormone-disrupting chemicals in animal studies:

"We know a lot about the process. We know it can be altered by chemicals. It
is important to take the effects you see in animal studies seriously."

This should be enough on this topic, I'm deeply sorry to associates myself
to you with such a depressong, damning dialogue, you will have my head on a
plate and I don't blame you; the frog population disappearing, the top of
the food chain infertility and illnesses; the huge declines in migrating
birds---and increase in human cancers--this is a clear and present warning,
I hope you will read the book and consider the data and the quality of the
people and facilities gathering the data and assessing it. I've only
scratched the surface, as fact after terrifying fact compels us to consider
as imperative our food and water supply, and those we entrustd to guard
them. It makes the eating of raw, organically grown food immediate, taking
advantage of every unchanged nutrient to help balance the damage, protect
us, and urges focusing on food safety by legislation. Not even growing your
own is  a fail-safe. The wind and rain take these diabolical chemicals to
the highest mountains and to the bottom of the deepest sea.

You have a right to ask if your water supply is being tested for hormone
disrupting chemicals (atrazine and dacthal are the common markers ) and if
your grocer doesn't carry organic produce, at least ask if he carries
produce  tested and found to have "no detectable residue". Inquire if his
store sprays produce with insecticides,(some do!!!) and do they cover
produce when the store is being sprayed? You have a right to know. Create an
interest.

Avoid animal fats, which store the hormones. Have a little chat with your
representative and senators, why don't you? (You can find their names on the
web, or I'll help.) E-mail a couple of friends and pass on the good news.
Get cranking!

And, er, this is a world problem, my french friends, canadians, south
americans, one and all of us, hmm? it is "Written on the Wind".

Pat