Dr. Shanna Swan: How to Safeguard Your Hormone Health & Fertility
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Welcome to the huberman lab podcast, where we discuss science and science space tools for everyday life. I'm into huberman and i'm a professor of neurobiology and optimal gy at stanford school of medicine. My guess today is doctor shana swan.

Doctor shana swan is a professor of environmental medicine and public health at the mount sni school of medicine. SHE is a world expert in how exposure to various toxins, n compounds in the food and environment impact our reproductive health. SHE focuses on how these compounds in our air, in our food supply, in our water supply, in cosmetics, even in household items, impact the developing fetus, children and adults at the level of their reproductive biology.

So things like testosterone and estrogen and the pathways within the brain and body that are impacted by testosterone and estrogen, but also how all those things in our environment and that we put into our body impact our health on a daily basis and our long term health. So during today's discussion, you will learn why fertility rates are indeed dramatically dropping from year to year, and have been for quite some time now. You'll also learn why testosterone one levels are dropping, why sperm councils are dropping, why things like policy stic ovarian syndrome are increasing in women, and what we can do about IT.

In fact, during much of today's discussion, doctor swan emphasizes the things that you can do every single day. And that, in fact, turn out to be very simple. They involve certain things to do and certain things to avoid in order to limit your exposure to these environmental toxins and their impact.

So by the end of today's episode, you will be highly informed by the world expert on underground disrupters and environmental toxins. And you will also be highly informed in terms of how you can have agency, how you can take control of your health in relation to these various compounds. Before you begin, i'd like to emphasize of this podcast is separate from my teaching and research roles at stanford.

IT is, however, a part of my desired effort to bring zero cost to consumer information about science and science related tools to the general public. In keeping with that theme, i'd like to thank the sponsors of today's podcast. Our first sponsor is element.

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Come slash huberman. And now for my discussion with doctor shana swan. Doctor shana swan, welcome .

doctor and human. Thank you.

I'm super excited for today's conversation. I've followed your work for a number of years. I've seen some of your appearances on other podcast, and I got to see you speak while we were both in copenhagen. I was in the audience you to know I was there, but incredible stuff that you've been doing IT as a researcher, as a public educator, as a writer, let's kick off by just asking the basic question.

Other things in our environment, including our food, that are diminishing our reproductive and overall health, and if so, which are the ones that you think about? And perhaps if you could just mention a few of the more salient. Um maybe you ve been shocking, but silicon results that you've have observed over the years, like what was what was that the kind of like wow result of results that have really steered your attention in the last a couple of decades.

And i'll just say what we were talking about before we were on the micron, which is that you are a skeptic. You are not. Somebody walks out into the world and looks for things that could be messing up our our biology, messing up our health, and yet you've fell in some. So if you could just share with us what you've observed in what you find really compelling and important for people to know about.

we can die. I was a lot of questions. I could probably talk for a long time.

Feel free. I won't speak until you're done. No.

but I want to break IT up. Let's break IT up. So I think the first question about was, are there forces chemicals agents in the environment that can affect a reproductive health? yes.

okay. So my answer that is yes, I think there is no question about that. The question comes down to one and in whom and what those and so on. And so first, but whether there are just to say broadly things yes, of course, um the category that I focus on are man made primarily men made chemicals although I do also include the influence of other factors, factors of choice, for example, sleep, exercise, that kind of thing.

We can talk about that, but let's just focus here on the on the chemicals because I think that's what LED me to do a lot of my research to the book that I wrote. And um so my um thesis is that chemicals in the environment, that's a very broad class. So we'll have to say some chemicals in the environment at the right time to the right organism affect fertility.

okay. So and let me just say, fertility is one area that I focused on. But actually, this classic chemicals that i'm primarily interested in are those that affect the bodies, hormones.

So those are known as hormone disrupting chemicals, or underground disrupting chemicals, harmon altering chemicals, whatever. You know this letter names, but that helps you focus on where to look for the effects. Because if it's harm altering, you can now have something to really ask.

Okay, here is a chemical does IT affect hormone. Which hormone? when? how? And then you start, that's almost an, you know, laying out and experiment right there, right? So so focusing in on hormone disrupting chemicals, I think, is use absolutely yeah yeah.

And I think much of what will talk about today probably centres on the estrogen into stores own pathways as they relate to mascula ization or feminization of the brain and body burman egg right?

So i'm a reproductive epidemiologist. I got there in an indirect path. I think probably my work on um all contracts tips let me there most directly and all contraceptives are underground disrupting chemicals they designed to do.

right?

That's what they're designed to do. Change your party's worms. You're reproductive farmer. So interesting, you know, way back when when I work on the study, cows are on oral contraceptives, which was the largest study of its kind in the world, actually trying to figure out, were there adverse effects of our all contraceptive?

If so, you know for whom and when and how much and others, a very great study and um coming forward in time. Um I you know studied in environmental chemicals, not so much arma utica um for quite a while in when I was at the california department of health services and and then I had an a harm moment I was flying to japan with my friend john brock was a chemist at C. D.

C. Wonderful chemist. And you had long flights. We're talking about this nice and he is sha, you should look at salads and i'm going, why should I look at sales? I never heard of salads, right? And he said, well, we can now measure them at the C.

D. C. And we see there in everybody, they're women of reproductive age.

Fact one fact, two colleagues of the N. T, P. Have shown something they're calling the felled syndrome. And so he explained.

what is N T P national .

toxicology program? Sorry, thank you for using alphabet .

national .

toxic logy program, a government research center and um and their job is to look at chemicals and see what is the toxicity. So IT could be reproductive IT could be course the city IT could be neurotoxic, that's what they do and um so they had signed out these salad as being reproductively toxic and specifically to males and specifically when exposure is unusual.

pregnant mom is exposed to sales and somehow the fetus disrupt ted yes, if you don't mind i'd like to know um is mom ingesting files in the form of food? Is he in healing felts are they landing on her skin? What are the modes of entry into the body of the mom that um was just assume that goes through the placental barrier into the and is impacting .

federal development, right? So in those experiments, IT was through food. But we are exposed in all those ways. You mentioned every way that something can get into our body sales get in there. But let's come back to that. Let me go experiment N T P so what they did A N T P national toxicity ty program, they they fed a mother rats various doses of these various salads and um and what they found was no changes in the females are not that they found at that time the the female of the spring .

female .

offspring sorry, but in the mail of spring they found that the genitals were I summarized by saying in completely masculine us so i'll explain what that is so for that I have to back up and say um something you know probably know very well, but i'll just explain IT. The general track initially is a ridge. A single ridge is the same in males and females. It's not sexually diameter at the beginning and then under the influence of testosterone in a very specific window called the male programing window. In rats these days, I think nine to twelve objections, a very short window .

to orient people. I think rat now station is about twenty one days or so.

Yes, okay, so so so it's for us. I'll be early first trimester k but that comes later. So so um at that time, if they feed the mother that chemical in her food, then her male offspring are born with changes in his genitals are more likely to right and so what they tend to have is smaller penis um less decent of the testers are likely to have understand testicles.

Um there are internal changes that we didn't get into in our human study because the we can look there, but um the epidemic there are changes and so on there. The whole general track is altered and the most important measure for me, as I turned out, and for humans um and perhaps animals, is something that the scientists animal sciences had studied for a long time for actually ninety plus years but have never been cited in humans and that is the distance from the annus to the genitals. This collection of changes in the mail generators was given the name the salad syndrome.

Now you're a physician, and you are chAllenge you to think of any syndrome aside from alcohol. You know, there feel alcohol of sync. Me, of course there is a syndrome, but know what syndrome is attached to a chemical class.

just for technical, on A P. H. E, on a clinic. But OK. But I worked on neural development for many years, and and then proud to that to indicate stuff. So file with the general terms. One that comes to mind would be, for instance, the film ed babies, right at this courage anti miscarriage drug that changed lib development that at a very extreme example um I would say for um in human the Normal development. What i'm most familiar with are the early organizing effects of androgen that convert to estrogen on external theo type, which is basically nerd speak for during development.

The White chromium uh produces at leads to the production of a number of genes and eventually proteins the R N A that um are including testosterone and di hydro testosterone that in the brain organizes the brain mail and causes the growth of the penis or organizes meaning IT is IT sets up the penis to then during puberty when the penis is exposed to testosterone and destroy en N D H T A bunch of not just this astern the peanuts grows right so that lots of other things right so the um the the word soup that I just you know put forward is basically saying that there are a lot of things in development where hormones set up up A A potential to respond to other hormones later. It's not that teston grows. The penetrant development IT does that.

But more so, IT establishes a potential for the penis to grow when exposed to things later during puberty. Do I have that right? right?

As far as the name goes, which is the salad syndrome, there is so little mined, it's not usually called the sound body could be you said you're right about that, but it's extremely rare and there is no environmental, no chemical. And the environment h posed to a pharmaceutical is given a syndrome. So this is very, very unique. And and so I thought, wow, john telling me this on the plain work, something in the .

environment that is basically having an enduring and body disruptive effect, at least on par with alcohol, fetal alcohol syndrome.

right? So when, well, this point IT was only animals, right? Because john was telling you about the ntp study, which was in rax.

And so I thought, wow, you know, I like puzzles. So my first question was, is this happening in humans? You might ask that, you know, I was a natural thing.

That great question.

And then I thought, how would we find out? And answering that question took me ten years. okay.

And so if you think about, okay, fit in the mother, changes in the generals of the offspring, connect them. How do we do that? right? So we have to start with salads.

And the mother, let me know that. Well, fortunately or not, I had stored a lot of yarn from pregnant women, from a study that I was doing on Spark. I just got the women's you're in.

Coincidently you will, i've thought, well, save IT. You know, it's not expensive and not hard minnesotan degree freezers doesn't take a lot of room, put IT in there. So we had this year and safe from pregnant women.

And then I knew from john that we could look in the urine for salad metabolites. So these are products of the body forms when they are exposed to salads. And then you can measure them in, you're in.

So I thought, OK, I could get that you're in, I could look at the salt metabolites and then I know what the mother is exposed to. And based on the animal data, we have good evidence that IT actually makes its way to the fears. So then I thought, okay, then maybe there's a change in the babies.

So then I had to get the baby. So fortunately, I had done this study on pregnant couples creating women in their partners. And I was able to call them and say, would you come in and let us measure your right? How willing were .

parents to let you do that.

that say they were okay. Most of them were with that. Yeah, yeah. Well, they trusted us. You know, they had been in a study with us, and you know, we were rapid able.

Those babies were still Young.

but not newborn. So this was A A while later that the babies that we actually got were, on average, I think, about a month, twelve months old. So not ideal, maybe because the rats have been measured words the rat genitals have. But that's what we could do at that time. Yeah, the reason I ask .

is there is always the potential for ongoing that light exposure to the newborn. So some but I suppose in either case, you're able to draw some potential link between or potentially draw link. I have to be careful with my language there between valid exposure in uo and x uo and these external about market.

I mean, given that the critical window is quite short and quite early by way, let me just say when the rats, they did a lot of work on this critical window, and when the rat moms were exposed before day nine, IT did nothing. And when they were exposed after day twelve, IT did nothing. So was only the exposure during that critical window is very delicate, and, by the way, true of the brain as well.

So there you teasing out what is the critical window is a one of the chAllenges that we have when we work with these chemicals. So I wasn't so much worried about exposure in the delivery room and, you know, in the feed as in the first year of life, because I knew that was unlikely to change these measures, do other things, but maybe, but not these measures. So then the question became, kind of what you're asking is what do we measure? What do we actually measure? And if you think about a newborn rider mouse, the generals are pretty small and there's not there's is very difficult to know exactly how that corresponds to the human general system and what you see at birth.

You know, when you spread the boys like and and so I got a pd trip in los Angeles who work with me on how to make that translation and how to do this exam. And that took us a quite a while while because we really wanted to come as close as we could. What was clear was that the the aist part of IT was easy.

You go to the center of anus, so that was easy. Then what's the other landmark? What's the general landmark? So IT turns out there are in males two, and in females there are two as well.

So but I just talk my males. So for males, the best place to measure, and actually closest to the red measurement is the place where the tissue changes. Uh with the score TM um inserts and that IT goes from mugger to smooth issue. And that point is pretty clear, pretty easy to measure. Um the other measure that was the underscore real distance and the other measurement we took was the N O piano distance and that with the insertion, the entire insertion of the penis.

the part closest to the body .

that close to the head yeah .

the closest .

to the head yeah and and that was not so obvious because you don't have a change in tissue there.

So where exactly do you put your calibre and um we had a lot discussion about do you press down to you water uh you know how we are exactly do you make that mark? And actually the inner gonna is the measured with the least variance because you can measure most precisely but the an open is is is another management and um and then you can do something similar and females and we did that, but that's we maybe don't have to go into that now. So we design this exam and we take a lot of work to make sure was repeatable ross examiners.

And what we finally did was bring the mothers and bring the babies in um and um got three measurements and then on every tense baby, we got an independent examiner to get three measurements so we could look at within and between examined variation. You never said this was the first time this has one been done this way in humans. There was a mexican study that trying to do this, and I never learned very much Better than I was excited that they had done this.

But I not sure how IT related to this. I've just mentioned that out of honesty know there is somebody in mexico this but to my knowledge this is the first time that was used as a toxic logical measure in humans right？ So we were um we did that study.

We related those measurements to what C, D, C had measured in the euro. Every woman collected while they were pregnant. And we found A A valid system.

Could you explain what the correlation was between the metabolite levels.

which is not by number because I don't remember IT anymore but but there was a significant um let's just take the A G D the A G D of mothers who had higher levels of three, the most anti androgens sallads. I'll tell you what those are a minute had significantly shorter enter general distance. And then I have to say that which I haven't seen.

I should have that energy, neal distances sexually dyk. So IT tends to be fifty to one hundred percent longer in males and females. That makes sense.

If you think about what's going in that space. There's a lot of real estate in in males between the anus and you know that say appears the insertion much more than in females. So it's natural that that will be longer.

But that that's that's an air. And that I began doing some work and other looking at other species and IT turns out that that's true. You know, all the million species, except two, and one is the hand and .

one .

is the elephant. So in the hena, i'm just saying this because you would be .

amused by that.

You know about hiens.

I do I know more about hya genitalia than i'd like to admit, and I can tell you why after you educate us. But I i've my explanation brief, but i'm very familiar with ha genitalia.

So I I have I know Stephen GLK men who works with a you might know him too, and he works in berkely.

He was my instructor when I was a graduate student. Cow and I used to run until in park. I was also tell now, and there was a colony of wild hours, but they were behind training. I actually a favorite hike of mine up the strawberry kenyan trail. And I A good friend of mine, brian prendergast es, now professor, the university chicago, worked on the prae walls that were also housed at that facility and um a fun thing to do was to go see the high as with Steve um they are brutally dangerous animals um and Steve has tons of stories about them we should probably resist our temptation to violence that maybe sometime i'll do a little like evening chat podcast where I I tell Steve click man story he's a delightful person and yeah those let's just say this, the female hyas have clitter is larger than some of the male hiya penises. And those females give birth through those classes yes.

as we both know. So you will not be surprised to know that the female agd is longer than the male .

because they're heavily androgen. Zed, exactly as I will call by andersen.

Actually I don't yeah know that IT became .

popular during the euro of of steroids and professional baseball because interesting dialed was being used for the um frequently in baseball at that time. Anyway, we have to we could go down the spiral of of but .

also in in terms of behavior. The female is the alpha.

They eat first. Yes there physically and um uh hierarchy dominant in it's really .

interesting isn't IT that they would have a longer more masculine internal distance. Elephants we won go into now, but they are kind of midway in many things so including there they're about equal indigenous and males and females others than that humans and other species. Male internal distance is fifty two hundred percent longer, however, so three sallets die f hex el salad D H P, die beautiful salad D B P and beauty pencil B B C P are the most anti androgens test astern lowering sallets. And those are the ones that were associated with a shorter initial distance in males.

in human males.

mails and animal. So we we replicated that animal study in humans. And then because, you know, this is how IT is in science, I had to do IT all again, right? So I started a whole new study um and that study is still going on. The children are still being followed. I think we started in um twenty twelve um the peer first paper on initial era distance came out in two thousand and five, a pretty big impact.

And um so so these are are studies where you are looking at the intergenerational stance in relatively newborn humans, then tracking that distance no, that's a different .

tracking is another study OK OK. This is just two studies on demonstrating the salary syndrome in human males. okay.

So the first one I described, the second one the replication, and the second one is the one that's going on still. So um and whether what that does to their reproductive function, we don't know. The kids are only twelve years old. So so we we would like to know that and we will know that. Okay, but I have another answer for you about that.

So so we started the second study and the second study, which is called tides, which is the infant development environment study um by the way, these are both in four cities in the united states um and um there we did IT right so we got the urine in the first you know early urn because we knew that could be important. White didn't have that option in the first one. Remember those your own samples were accident anal.

We've got them when we could right? And we got repeated during wanted need trimester to look at the effects in different trimmest ers. And then we examine the babies at birth, which is what the reds. So we came much closer to replicating the the road and study, and we saw again.

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Again, go to drink A G one dot com slash huberman to claim the special offer more salad exposure requites to shorter in our general distance in males IT um was approaching the distribution in females. Um IT sounds like that the distributions moved more closely together. Yes, right.

Although wasn't the .

females that move, sorry, the male distribution became more live, became more right. They feminized. But when a female .

like in IT and they but these boys also had small open uses, less descent of the tests um smaller problems says they were smaller, you know everything was in the general area.

All the secondary sex characteristics of in males Adams at apple, facial growth, thickening of the vocal cords, therefore lowering the voice at a are those all later activating effects of hormones, or are the precursors to those that are present in in, on, in males? Because in my as I recall, like like I couldn't I couldn't tell you that like we call IT in the laboratory, people with chocolate disputes like sexing the animals when you you know looked to determine with a male or female when they're really Young, you have to like look carefully at first, right? And then you get pretty good at IT.

Um as they get older IT gets easier but when the mice are um you feet down, back up, you know you can't really you can't really tell, you can't you can't really tell right? As they might get all there, their testicles become visible in the males from even from above. But as far as I know, there aren't really external Marks, so you may have found the one truly external bio market .

of mAilings of male's and and so I do want to say one thing about females because then that me to my conclusion about the role of this measure. Um so if the mother is exposed to more test strong than expected. You might expect that her female offspring would have a more male in a general distance.

Is that the case? yes. So it's a by direction. yes. Can we also presume that if the mother, either secrets or is exposed to more androgen than the males, can become hyper male?

No, we d never I don't know what that would be. We never saw anything that would be hyper male. Um so the the yes, I said to you was the result of a study uh where we looked at the girls born to women with P C O S. So women with P S C O S, as you know, have the excess .

testosterone git .

before .

a it's associated with my international is is associated with elevated levels of android gen.

That's right. These women often have facial hair. And you know that not .

just the moms but the the people the women with pcs yes, have elevated androgen. Yes not just we're not talking about pregnant mom's exactly .

um and so in our steady population, we did a search for women who had diagnosis of pcs and took that as a marker of higher disaster exposure and then looked at the girls and yes, those girls had a longer quote, more masculine gender distance.

What what age group are you looking at? Any fence of the P C.

O S. Was that was that the at pregNancy at the time they were pregnant?

So presumable people between their like somewhere in their twenty years out to their forty, yeah yeah. Adult human females who have P C S. Tend to, we know they have higher levels of androgen, but they also have more male like ino genital distance.

They do not.

Their daughters do, their daughters do. Thank you for that clarification.

Their daughters and so put this together, this measure is a look inside the warm at the energon level that the food is exposed to at that time, which is amazing because you can't go in there without disturb, you know you can't. Uh, and so this very early first prime master, you can get, you know, flu, flu at home. So this tells you this is like a redoute of what was in, you know, in the fluid at the time. So then your next question was, what does this mean for later fertility? yes.

Yeah what what is the impact of this early androgen exposure into female offspring or um let's just say reduction in functional androgen exposure to mae offspring. The reason i'm using this a in a loopy loop language is, as you probably know, but for the audience not trying to complicate things here, but a lot of the masculinzed effects of hormones in feedle development is actually testosterone that's converted into estrogen.

So I can get pretty tRicky, right? And but maybe for sake of simplicity today will just stick with androgen effects on massacre ization, with the understanding that some of those effects are the consequence of testosterone being converted in to estrogen, is just that people form such strong associations falsely, that test astro is male, male ness, and that's not true. And and an estrogen is female ness and they but I just gets really marky, but for the time being. You identified an external bio mark of federal androgen, A K, A masculine ization via the mother.

That's right. Got IT. okay. So then we asked the question. You've asked, many people asked, who cares what?

what? Why would we worry about a boy having a slightly smaller any general distance? Well.

I can tell you there are many boys that are probably worried about IT right now, right? Probably got the ruler in the calibre out right now. Just you, but i'm gonna .

wer that question, right? So I told you that our kids are too Young. They're not producing sperm right now, right? So we had to go to adult population, right? And so we went to population of college students in rochester, new york.

And what we did there was make an assumption, which is based on animal data. It's true. And animals, we've been following animal path you're along. So in the animals, my colleague, or gray.

who did these studies, the name is gray. Yeah.

that's cool. yeah. He said, A G, D is forever or .

distances.

Now, what that means, this is not like your gender is today is what I was when you were born. Of course you're a bigger person, but that means adjusted for body size, right? So if you assume that A G, S, forever, you're born with a short for your size A G D.

Then when you're twenty, you'll have a short for your size. A G D OK can reason that. okay. So if we assume that, then if we get these coaches to come in and we can measure their in a general distance, we're getting a reflection of what I was when they removed.

okay? And then we can get the sperm count, and then we can see if they're related. And that's what we did. So we got this population of volunteers, paid them seventy five dollars. And one of the guys said, for seventy five bucks, you can do anything. And so what we did was we measured their in general distance, and then we got them to give a seen sample and complete a questionaire. And things you do in a study will link to that study.

But I have a couple questions about the controls in that study just for sake of people understanding how I study like this. Yeah would be done. I don't expect you recall all the all the details but you're dusting for body size and body wait yeah hate wait. What are the factors that would scale here that would allow you to Normalize um in other's what you trying to do is backtrack to what IT likely was. No.

we didn't actually try to go back. Let me just tell what the results were in this group of man. If they had a longer any general distance, they had a higher spring cut.

got IT. So you are calling those two measures.

right? And then if we wanted to say something about we didn't try to say anything about how I was when they were born, we just said, okay, we will take that assumption that this reflects their early A G, D. If we want to say something about early A G D and firm count, so is easy to say A G D related ers firm count because we measured that, we saw that a correlation as published OK. If we want to say they're early A G D at birth and the sperm count, that's a leap of face in some sense because we don't have their early for these guys and rochester, we didn't measure their age.

Were there any conditions of being a participant in the study such refraining from alcohol, cannabis, that said, in the ninety days prior and ninety days being that the duration of a permanent es? And these are college students, so presume some of them their dream. Okay, yeah, so but in the end, IT IT was a robust, a robust link.

And then my issue.

who you might know, yeah, I get to where he's been on this broadcast. Yeah I think .

he's a got like one two and um he um looked at a man futility clinic. And those who had born children and those who had not born children and the men who had born children had a longer in a gentle distance than men who had never born a child.

never born. But we're trying, yes, right? These were not people who opted out.

These were exact. These were people who who were having chAllenges with fertility versus success. And by.

you know, the question of how you measure A G, D and an adult man is a different question, and how do you measured in a newborn? And we did a lot of work on that. And Michael help with that too.

So that sounds like um oh and I ask where the sperm counts that we're on. The less to say the lower like the lower cortile where the cording quote lower sperm counts like functionally lower because I always wonder about this like it's come up in a number of discussions like with Roberts supose key with my guys in bergan. Now i'm asking you, and when we hear that sperm councils going down, are they going down to the point where fertility is is impacted? That's really the the one of the, I think, functional questions.

So i'm gonna. Let's let aside the question of A G D right now. That's not really interesting, but let's talk about form out OK OK. okay. So um if you there's A A beautiful study um among prevents y planner out of denmark um quite a long time ago um and in that study what they did was take couples that were trying to conceive that had never or not recently I can't member used oral contraceptives and then they say what the sperm count was and how long I took them to conceive right time to pregnant y in relation to and what they showed is a really interesting curve which has never been corrected to my ologies is what I use them what I think people use, which is that if you, I wish I could draw here or you had promise a lot .

of people and listening, but maybe we can talk people through.

So so so just think about a curve where you go all the way down to zero that would be no sperm um and then as the probability conceiving zero, you're looking at sperm count along you know x access and month to conception um and um what you see is that if you have no spare me to have no conception, if you go around forty forty five, there's a steep increase. So the most firm you have forty.

forty five million .

million per millage.

And this is million premiered. So just pure concentration, not number of motor sperm. This is just how not talking about .

quality number. And when you have forty five to fifty million per later and below, IT matters a lot. What your spam counters, I mean the people say, doesn't matter.

yeah. If you get in this range where the probable conception is dropping off really rapidly, IT matters a lot. And then there around forty five to fifteen starts to level off. And then after that, after certainly after hundred, probably seven, five, IT doesn't .

matter at all one. So one hundred million sperm per million litter. Yes, of .

Simon, yes. So can you see this OK? So so when people say, does spring count matter for? Unfortunately, yes, IT matters a lot if it's low, and no, IT doesn't matter at all if it's high. So you just we just have too many problems. I don't humans to and is nature runs .

a probability game over produce firm, right? Some of those will be high qualities. Some will be low quality depending on their age, when they were, that is.

when they were generated.

or their conditions, their conditions, how much. So nature runs a probability game, hoping that the the, the best quality sperm will further last the egg. So below forty five thousand, excuse me, below forty five million, below forty five million, burn per man.

Leader of Simon, this firm count really matters. IT drops off precipitous. Ly want to get up to seventy five, one hundred million per million, leader of good .

to right in .

sperm counts, a range anywhere from what you know. IT could be low, eight, nine, ten million premium year in the very low situation could be zero in some people, right all the way up to four hundred years, million. There's a huge range.

And that's a function of age. It's a function of genetics. It's a function of presently state exposure.

Yes.

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And then I asked the question, you know, okay, we're hearing about sperm counts dropping, but is IT functionally relevant, is that one of the reasons why fertility is dropping? And we've also got the female side where we ve got women with elevated androgen, so we can talk about a little bit later. But um and then of course we have the socio uh the city biology uh peace where people are opting out um or it's also economics in some cases um opting out of having kids, right? So let's go back .

to sperm can cause we haven't really talked about now it's a kind of a different path. And my introduction into salads was not through firm count, right? IT was, through this question of my colleague, ask me, you should look at this and chAllenged. And I looked at IT, and that was really, really interesting journey that I went on. Okay, so that but there was a separate for a while journey that I was on and that started in the late nineteen nineties when um I was asked to join the committee of the national adem of sciences and that committee was assembled to look at the question of whether harmony active chemicals enterkin disrupting chemicals in environment posed a threat to human health because at that time I was like, well, yeah, we hear about this, but should we care right and so that committee wanted to consider a study they had come out of denmark a few years earlier, which claimed that sperm count had dropped fifty percent and fifty years.

Wow, that's a huge drop.

That's what we're seeing worse than that by the right now. So okay, they said to me I was the only stadium on the panel. Would you look at this and see if we need to consider this in our deliberations? And as I mentioned, i'm skeptical. And I looked at that, I thought, ah I don't think so. That was my initial reaction and that was because, first of all, I didn't know who had written this.

I just saw in a journal and and IT was not very big and not very minute figures, not very many much data and I thought of IT and I thought that's has a big claim for a little a little paper you um but i'll look at IT because it's important and so what I did then was to think about all the factors that we have ideologists call confounders things that might have caused that decline if IT wasn't real biologically right. And so we could think of some of them together um you know maybe the method of counting sperm had changed so that later methods counted fewer firm in the same sample that's certainly possible, right um but he turned out that wasn't the case because they actually had all use the same method um and maybe the men had changed so maybe there's so you can get a sperm count at random. You have to get somebody volunt teer right? So who are these men? Are where they're very different, you know, in the early part of the study, in the late part of the city, in a way that maybe in the late part of the city they remain with lower sprinkle and they were more concern, you know maybe they were more obese.

That's pretty simple obesity related to see spring camp fertility um and maybe they smoke more and maybe and someone and so first right, so what I did was to get the sixty one studies, go through them and try to extract information on all the factors that could explain the decline. So I created a multivariate model and ran that model. And to my astonishment, when I was done, the slope of the decline was exactly the same to the first disable place. IT had not explained anything. I was like, oh my god, this looks like IT might be real.

And and for those listening, what doctors wanted describing is being the excEllent scientist that he is. He went and looked for all the things that could impact the result that were not related to what the main conclusion seemed to be, which is that sperm counts were going down over time. Right right. And this is really important um to because I think what we're talking about here in parallel to the main conversation is how to do really great science, especially in human populations that are out there living you know some of these men probably you know smoke some cannabis. I'm not saying that reduce this account might reduce M M mote motility.

However, we covered that in the podcast or now that all the kind of go you know so so got so one so pregnant when they were doing something a lot of we and I always say, okay, well, there are number of other factors right know but alcohol there's frequency of eject lation right the the requirement to abstain for forty eight to seventy two, two hours to up to five days prior, you know, that are all all these factories that men mayor may not faithfully report, but you assume that if summer telling the truth and some aren't, that there's an equal distribution. That's all the different things. This is so very different than looking at, for instance, overy in reserve like the number of eggs where you use alter sound and use amh levels.

And um sure things can impact that, but it's little different than when taking sperm counts. So thank you for doing the the study so carefully for repeating them so many times. I mean, many of the studies that you've done or or um you've done follow up on the spend count studies across multiple years.

Now as you said, the first study was in one thousand nine two, then you did one in twenty seventeen. Then there was one. Again, there was an update I noticed online. So you are extremely thoro and and IT probably reflects your early training in math and statistics and probability theory. You're not somebody to just kind of go in, oh yeah, like these people that eat a few too much of this, then there's a little bit less of that. So I just want to if today's discussion feels like we're really um we're leaving through this um that's intentional and it's important for people to hear these these kinds of claims are not the sort of thing that you could people make them all over all over the board but work like this needs to be done um with an extremely particular eye and consideration of all the variable good .

scientific method ah .

yeah yeah and I would say especially with human epidemic logical work because of the number of potential confiding arables.

So so when I saw that and actually did another study to select my own studies and not accept her sixty one studies that have been published that eliza with cal center published uh some new studies came up to more recent times, went back further. Did IT again found exactly the same thing. Okay, so there were three, you know, three looks at that.

I thought, okay, i'm gonna cept this. Now this is farm count is declining. And why that? I turn to the why? Okay, because the up down now we hadn't said anything, but why we just said, is IT doing that? yes.

okay. If I now we believe IT is declining, why? And so then I thought quite lot and talk to people and ruled out genetics because IT was too fast as too generations was too fast, fifty years to generation.

So if it's not genetics, then its environment. And so what is IT about the environment that could do this? So I asked, okay, in the environment, there could be things that are making sperm decline.

So if you think about how you might look at that, you might design the study that I design next, which was another study. And by the way, this preceded the A. G.

D. So just so we had four cities in the united states that we picked with different environments. And then we got men to come in, and we used the same equipment at each players.

We used the same method of selection, selecting the man. The technicians were trained centrally at U. C. Davis. We had very good quality control. So samples were sent around every quarter to make sure that everybody was measuring things the same way if we didn't want drift, right and then we got their yearn um and that's how I had those your in table. So if you wanted to do this study and you wanted to get a representative sample of men, where would you go?

Because you can I can ask a guy in the street to give me a same in sample, right? I think it's not not something you would get very, you know. So I thought, how can I get a representative sample and which would teach me something about a larger population called appearing population? So here is a sample IT should represent the.

So how do I ensure that? And what I decided was to sample partners of pregnant women. Because pregnant women all come to medical, are almost all.

And if their partners will give the same example, then we have a representative sample and when we know what we are looking at. So that's what we so this is the seamon study, is the study of partners of pregnant women. And um and of course, they'll have a slightly higher same in quality because they got their partner pregnant.

But um and so we had their year and we had their blood and um we looked at their seeming quality and then we decided to look at pesticides. And the reason we look at pesticides um was because there was a lot of gradation across our four centers and pesticide use. And what we found was really extraordinary that men who were living in central missouri, where I was living at the time, who were in the middle of a agricultural belt, where there was spraying all the time for soybeans and so on, um those men had half as many moving sperm as men in many apples.

Wow, wo huge right? And then we went one step further. And with in missouri, we looked at a sample of man who had very high sperm parameters and very low spam parameters and show that five pesticides were significantly higher in the men with the low sperm parameters that include Molly. More follows. So these are pesticides .

that are being sprayed in the air on crops. You mention soybeans. What other? What other types of crops?

I don't know. OK, I don't remember.

So, so plant in fruit crops.

Yeah, whatever, whatever they were growing in climb y misery .

and and just to make sure I understand, and it's not that the many corn orbans, but we're not talking about eating corn and soybeans. We're talking about living in an area where pesticides are being used. This is still called dust cup.

Yeah we didn't go into how they got this. We just looked in their urine and there were the metabolic metabolize don't get in their urine unless they were exposed .

exposed through the air, exposed by eating corn.

soybeans we don't know OK don't know um but this was not a particularly we didn't send the farmers are only you're anything like that so whoever came in to the remember how we got these men, their wives were pregnant. They were having prenatal care at the university misery. So that's where we got them. Whatever happened to come in to the prenatal clinic and agree to be in our study there, the male you know urn male urine was measure for for these pesticides.

I'm sure a number of people, including myself, are wondering in what other products are these five pesticides present? Um are they use commonly use pesticides? Is that .

something about called the train is was the most widely used, it's huge use around the world. I mean is highly you know one of the most the largest commercial pesticide um so these were very big players in the pesticide field.

A relevant theme there would be, uh, maybe we could take a moment and talk about atrocities and its effect on male sexual behavior in in fiba and will come come back to the sperm says because when I was a graduate student, you see berkely at the wonderful experience of taking a course from the now I think you mentioned he's A D there are multiple dines on campus.

Tehran haze is a wonderful researcher um who establish a link through his research between atrium exposure and um male sexual behavior of amphibia. yes. Could you elaborate on that result?

Yeah so tyrone first caught frogs in the wild. And environments that were moral was exposed to everything and show affects on development and sexual behavior. Then he, in his lab, he actually exposed them. So he knew exactly who was exposed to how much. And he showed that the, and I can tell you what person or what, you know how, but a significant number of frogs exposed this pesticide attraction, shows to meet with other male frogs.

try to make with presume unsuccessful.

they mounted them. He has photos of the male, male mounting males.

And so persistently, this is a neural change that occurred, neural induction change. But ultimately, neural since mounting behavior, or is controlled by, actually, we now know that the hypothermic nuclear that control, the David Anderson, who's been on this podcast as people in his laboratory that including a former graduate during mine. Working on on this specific issue of what the circuitry is.

That's a remarkable result. It's been kind of used in miss, used out out there in the in the media, in popular culture. But if nothing else suggests that the organization of the neural circuits and newer underground pathways that control sexual, I don't want a partner because is a meeting thing that the frogs are an organic, but uh uh sexual preference are um significantly impacted by this by this atrophy.

Yes and and I suggest that that the other in romal chemicals can as well and we I don't know how will have time to go there, but I did work on neuro developmental outcomes relation to Green ail valid exposure. So I think the overarching idea here is that the brain, like the genitals, is sexually demography. And there's many people, by the way, who take a fence of .

that really yeah I think there's I mean going back to the the work of Frank beach and the psychology department, you see berkely um show this ambiguous. It's it's been shown in pretty much every species but it's not a Better worse I think is what people need to hear like demophoon not mean Better, worse.

That means different. And there are, for example, IT is to special reasoning in a mail that which are related to test stern, right? You know, that faction, yeah. I mean, my understanding .

of this literary and i'm not an expert in this particular aspect, which is the behavioral finot pes, but you know like the media preoptic area, the hypothesis is known to be severally domestic dependent on testosterone converted a genre department and then there's just so much evidence of this how IT links to behaviours is can I think can be reasonably placed into ethologist ally relevant um uh evolution logical um arguments when talking about road and or bigos or even races macc monkeys.

I think where people get um a bit inflamed is when people trying take the sexual dimorphism that have been observed in animal brains or in even in human brains, attack those to specific abilities or or or lesser abilities. I think that's where people have go way to second like I have much Better sense of direction than my husband you go so yeah like, you know and then you go. Does that mean that he has higher to stop her one than him? And then maybe that and pretty soon you're you're in a almost a no man's land and no person's land of the of confounding variables, right? But I really appreciate that you raise this, yes. And also that you said IT and I didn't, because I I feel safe for that way.

There is A A very simple, outdated question, nair. And its play behavior is called the P. S. A. I has been used for years.

Have you play?

Yes, yes, yes. And there are twenty four questions on there. And they are sexually but I guess you could say that you know my child likes to play with doles, my child likes to play dress up, my child likes to play rough and tumble.

And that and we gave that questionnaire to our population um and looked at the answers, uh, that the mother's gave both in our population, by the way, and the swedish population of the colleague there uh coral born hawker and good stuff born hawk and and um what we found higher salary levels. These anti antanas felix were exasperated with less masculine male typical play in our male boys. So this is .

stalled exposure to to the mom baby is born in the Young human child.

I think, years of four years.

age less, rough, tumble type play among the boys whose mothers were exposed to more sales during a critical period of development.

Now you can see that politically loaded, you should know I mean.

you know yeah well, I think where I mean to let's have some fun with this in in the scientific sense, the notion of dimorphism is you okay? Male and feemale brains are different, right? We have a male feemale defined and those almost all those studies as presence of a White.

And then people say, well, there's some, there's X, Y, Y and then there's xx. Okay, but most of the time you're talking about X X chromosome one or X Y chromosomes es at birth. Forget everything else.

For the moment, these are always distributions. This is what I think people need to know. We're not talking about this are not this is not, uh, you two hills of data separated by a valley, these are overlapping distribution.

X right, right? So you get males with a coin quote, female like distribution. You get feemale with a coin quote, male like distribution. And I think as long as we acknowledge that, then we're just stocked in statistics. We're we're not placing any cultural or um any value on IT really whatsoever, right?

But but if you you could make the analog to the internal distance is kind of similar. You know you have the same exposure, salary exposure. You have something changed statistically. We don't see huge differences in the boy's generals, uh, and and we don't see huge I don't we know these kids had not in scans, so we don't know how their brains look, but based on their answers, we don't see huge differences. We see ten and six. We see they are more likely if they had been exposed to these standards to wanna play, dress up and have two parties more likely doesn't mean that they're all going to, but that's the direction and so on. So I think we have to just think about more likely, not absolute.

yes. And of course there are the the socio biological variables such as um if a Young boy has a sibling that's sister, there is more likely to be dressed as around right she's gonna he has two older brothers. There might be more rough and tumble play happening in the house and I have some friends that are women who have older brothers and those women are a you know some of them Roger jitsu, or do, and I know some women who are only children who do martial arts and fight, right? You know, so so I think that none of this is deterministic, right, as we know.

But but let me just that we did control for the sex of the sibling, older sibling, and we also asked about the parents attitude just towards same sex play. So what would, how would you feel if your child, your male child, play with dogs? Would you be discouraging, would you? Because he has a lot to do with what's in the house. Know you said, this is your child. Play with dogs.

What if there were? No, just so interesting to me. I don't anna real too much, but I just because it's not it's just a man of one. But I grew in a household where I have a sister.

But then after a certain age I received very strong messages about what sorts of play um or gender appropriate um and I think I also just naturally defaulted to have there were a bunch of boys that lived in my igher od. They have older sisters. So all the sisters hung out together come interesting.

All the Younger brothers pretty much hang out together. And the the guys that weren't didn't have siblings or at brothers for siblings. So there was a really strong divergence. But I grew up in the that was in the seventies and early eighties when things were, let's just say, culture was more die effect than clearly. I mean, there were television shows like all the family, which the entire basis of the show was the wife going back to work and the husband being confused about nowaday. People will go like, that's why I have to ask because I know people are wondering and i'm wondering what are some non pesticide sources of sales that um we have agency over that we can take control over.

right? So let me correct you, it's not that sources of the necessarily pesticides, there are flies in pesticides um but that's not the worst player in um the in the story if you look at the different classes of exposure that are commonly active, right pesticides are salads. Are this offends like this final .

A P A B P A certain metals .

are there's A P fox chemicals, there's all these different classes, right? And if we want to go to excuse me into what in our daily life exposes us to these things, that's another story that um we we can talk about, but they've gona be different depending on the class, right?

So let's um throw our arms around all of those for the moment. And i'll just ask you, given that year an expert in this area, what are the top three to five sources of indian disrupters that we have agency over? And let's forget about pregNancy for the moment since we we're all out of the woman if we're listening to this, some people be pregnant as they listen to IT. But um would you say it's you know drinking out of plastic bottles as IT laundry detergent is IT, you know rubber tires that are cascine down on us through the air and were inhaling them I mean, personally, all of the above, but are which ones that we have agency over do you think are the most is to say concerning where people could make Better choices.

Um I would say fit born exposure exposures in the food, in the food packaging, in the food storage, in the food, in the cooking of your pencils. Um we can go through the various things, but. We are doing that all the time we're eat, all the time we're getting fluted into us.

And these are bringing in in a very you know in a way that we have some control over some agency over uh you know we can make changes in our foods. Um very close to that is drink, you know food and beverage. Um so I first of all, i've talk about this a lot. I've written about IT in my book and also, as you know, involved in the movie where in the movie that might be good time to talk about what what we do in the movie. The movie is about six couples that are inferred, okay, they haven't been able to conceive in twelve months as the definition.

And um then a company that I work with a million marker out of burkey has a trained staff that interviews them, not only them, but anyone who signs to the company interviews them and ask them what they're use, what do they use further the facial care, what do they use for their shampoo, what do they use for their cleaning products and their laundry detergent, and what do they store their food in and on on. So this is long inventory that they take of all products that people are aware of using. okay.

And um based on that, we identify likely bad players in the list. So how we do that is another you know we can talk about that later but um then in the film and in this little is actually an experiment that I designed and call an intervention. And we are then intervening in their exposure by changing out these things that they told us so we will tell them, you know, don't use any product with fragrance, for example. That's an major source of exposure to any product, any fragrance product.

If fragrance is perfume, no lotions, soap with fragrance, even essential oil fragranced.

Essential oil is a .

tRicky right to mix.

is a mix. yes. yeah. So I am a scarred, but but anything, you know.

spray the old and roll on the ordinance.

long surgeons up in shape, and any, if you can smell IT is probably affecting your hormones.

I'm so happy about this answer, not because I have any stake and in any company related to fragging free stuff, but I, I, I have a very strong sense of smell. And I am either lover hate smells and I hate synthetic smells, like going through the duty free, especially in the european airport where with all the perfumes, yeah, and I just going to hold my breath. I know he feels like a breathing poison. I know what you are .

actually yeah yes.

And most soaps right um super interesting. So that's your primary intervention is to tell them get rid of anything with fragrances. No.

that's only one thing we get rid of. So then we we talk about how the plastics that they used to store their food, food storage containers try to get them to get rid of those. If they're made a plastic, we try to get them to get rid of their nonstick pans because of the p of chemicals that are in those and and so on and over. So we go through a all steps of their life and try to tell them how to make changes that will reduce their exposure.

But presume ly also um changes like if if the man is obese, for instance, you might walking A I C.

And if we did that, we would be mixing up to and interventions, we would be mixing up an obesity intervention.

I is a study, I am sorry, I thought that this group is uh is mission ed with helping .

couples get pregnant. This is a study to look at what happens if you make these product related changes. great.

Just product related exactly.

exactly we would love to do and probably will do another study. Separate one on obesity. And you know a lot of these chemicals, just to let you know, are obese gene, they increase obesity.

There's a book I would call the the visions ins you can read about them. And so you know we will be is very know there is some overlap. So by reducing some of these chemicals that are in your food storage containers, you are also reducing obesogen.

So it's not a clear you know yes, no, we gave them a box each couple. I went to their house, six couples around them with a big box. And in this box are these alternative products.

And um so you know stars and in bamboo s spoons and you know five hundred dollars per box, I think I was approximately to had to do with their personal you know exposure and and then they made these changes. Now unlike another study that you're reported, they are at the end quite happy to keep doing this by the way, they love this. They love doing this.

IT was so gratifying to see that they felt in many, many ways their life got Better. You know, i'm not a i'm a pretty carefully when I so I I hesitate to say this because the data is not hard. But the impression is that they are happy, happier.

They are sleeping Better than for former energy. And so having made these changes, we need to follow that up with a hard data. I'm not writing that.

I'm not, you know, but but I can say and I can write that they felt very positive and are going going to grow back and see if they did continue. We need to do that. But at the end of the six of of the three months, they and hopefully in six months, they will. They are still making these changes in their lives.

You collect date on whether not they were able to conceive after having made these changes.

We did. But I actually can talk about that.

can talk until the babies are born. Just kidding.

And and we did get their spam count at the beginning and the end and had some very .

interesting day on let me ask you this then um I appreciate that the not wanting to share specific results until this all the data in and its published um if somebody listening, we're having trouble conceiving um for twelve one or more um are the sorts of replacement intervention and product interventions that you're talking about here, things that you would um at least feel comfortable saying um would might be a good place to start .

or to explore or absolutely there is no harm. You know we're none of the changes are putting people at risk or doing anything that could be harmful to them. I'm sure of that.

Very careful. And some where are going to be cost saving? Um I think that's worth like drinking out of a plastic bottles, far less if at all like I um just for reasons relate to want to reduce waste.

I I use a Mason jar or use these or ceramic although you'll probably tell me that the the lining on the ceramic mug might have a Green disrupter snow. I don't okay, great. okay. Well then i'll keep drinking. Um but it's very reassuring to me that there are things that we can do in terms of cost saving, elimination or replacement of of consumer ables buy in bulk that can improve endurance status.

maybe fertility bulk, bring a container to the store and fill IT up a glass jar instead of buying something in plastic. You're winning on both ends because those bulk products are cheaper.

Um one of the things I did with the couples was go shop with them and we went around and we looked at various products and for example, we looked at the produce and there was the option to buy free standing bunches of letters, heads of letters or wrapped up in plastic bunches of what and I said, let's compare the Price. I actually didn't know we did, but that free standing on rap letters was cheaper. And I think that you know because that makes sense because there's a work involved that wrapping IT up and in the container and so on. And so not only are you getting something that's more toxic, but it's more expensive when .

IT comes to reducing B P, A exposure and some of these forever chemicals that you mentioned, things like reducing fluid intake from plastic vessels is gonna be number one.

The primary resource of B P, A is in the lining of cats. So any drink or soup or anything that comes in a can is going to be .

um any can.

all can can unless it's a high and you know a lead company that made the change from B P A to an alternative of lining and they'll say that so and by the way B P A has some bad relatives um such as B P S N, B P F. And maybe you'll be interested in the story.

So when they came out that B P A was estrogens, which is what IT is um and by the way, it's kind of the evil twin of sales because sales are the androgens c and B P A S S romanic and that s make plastic soft and B P A makes plastic hard. You don't want either. okay.

So when this came out that this was a bad thing, um the manufacturer started selling things that say B P A free. I'm sure you ve seen that. The trick is that instead of B, P, A.

I use B P, S, N, B, P.

F. And these are chemicals are, look alikes, they're logs and they are justice harmful.

Sneaky, sneaky, sneaky. I'm not a conspiracy theory, but it's just so dirty. It's so dirty. It's like it's right now a really important time to be having this discussion because there's spent a lot of movement on capital hill and there's been a lot of movement on social media about trying to call attention to meta lic syndrome is and highly processed oos and and issues like this. And it's become unfortunately, politicize.

I mean, I hear this stuff and I just think to myself the only good faith um that we can really trust is our own desire to be healthier and um to have our families and friends be healthier and to try and consume and not consume things on the basis of that that my belief is that we can't trust any any larger agency to either protect or hamma. So it's like it's not it's it's like they're going to do what they're going na do. We just have to be informed as supposed to trying to like dismantle the systems that LED to this, which just seems IT like infinitely complicated.

Um maybe you can do that, but i'm far less optimistic. And now i'm forty nine years old. I can say things like now that i'm forty nine and I feel like but what you're saying is really important.

If I look at a, can that says B, P, A free doesn't mean anything because have bp, sis or other at underground disruptors. So drinking out of glass vessels, drinking out of the mic vessels, metal, metal, but not cans. Not metal is not aluminium cans, right?

Not cans. No goodness. OK. You know, you can get a metal, water, metal. It's not lined with p .

steel and steel. yeah. And is IT true that microwave safe means, that just means that the plastic won't melt in the microwave.

But who never, never put plastic in a microwave is a story. The B, P, A, C, plasticizer are added to the plastic, but they're not chemically bound to IT. okay? So if you put anything in a container that has these chemicals in IT, they will and then put them in a hot environment, they will come out of the plastic and go into the food.

So if you in in my grave, or you put your bottle in the car and the sun comes in IT warms up the bottle and then the stuff goes into your water. You don't want to mix these chemicals and your food, but if you do, the worst thing is to do IT. You do environment.

I think about all the food that was consumed in college in in the nineties and two thousands, like the cup of noodles with the style phone, the, you know, things in packaging and stuff like that is pretty straight forward to eliminate. Once one understands and decides, then we start getting into the more nuances thing, like, okay, you can buy a really nice testing anyway, grass fed, grass finished stake, but it's wrapped in plastic well.

Or you can go the butcher, but most people don't have time to go to the butcher. Or you can get strappers at the farmers market. Blue ries, the farmers market, which is what I try to do.

But sometimes I buy strawberries at the market. They have those plastic things. And of course, I recycle the plastic. How bad is IT if you know you rst the strawberry off with the clean water that were in the plastic container.

are you we have to do that experiment? Yeah so I guess .

so IT sounds to me like um not drinking out of camps, not drinking out of plastic bottles, it's going be not microwaving plastic ever. And in general, just avoiding avoiding plastic intake .

if you can afford IT by organic. So you're going to to avoid the pesticides and then flies are actually added to pesticide and they're added because they increase absorption. So you know that you want your pesticides to get into the plant right and to kill the bad stuff and and insects and and um so the same property of valleys that makes them good for pesticides also makes them good for our hand cream.

Just mentioning how absorption absorption anything that absorbed in the body is gonna family in IT and IT also holds cent and color. So it's added to those cents and also added to your lipstick and to your color, you know, whatever you put on your face. And so anything that holds certain color that's gonna sales.

sorry, i've been accused online and of being a sun screen truth er i'm not a sun screen truth or i'm going to keep repeating this so many times. I can I I understand that uv damage to the skin can cause certain cancers.

I get that um I agree with that um the data are pretty clear to me based on having research this pretty extensively in talk to many, many people, including germon ecology that mineral base sun screen like zink and titi um dioxide, but certainly zinka's IDE are safer than the chemical sun streams. A lot of people get upset when I say that, say, well in europe is tons of evidence that the chemicals based screens, okay, you use them. I'm not going to the point being that U V damages bad.

There are ways to to protect ourselves from the sun, including physical barriers like clothing heads that said a um but pretty much all sun screens that i'm aware of is designed to be absorbed. So what do we do if we want to get some U U V protection from whatever kind of screen we deem safe for ourselves, but we want to avoid these exposures to these other things? What what do we do? Do we have to hunt really carefully for the right sunscreen?

Ah yeah I I think that's a good idea. Um are you familiar with environment working group?

Is another one another big area?

No, oh, okay, I don't know something there.

Prety sounds sounds familiar, but I not I can't .

say a consumer guides. And in those consumer in some environmental working group, i'm not part of them, you know, but I like their work. And in these consumer guides, you can put in the product and they have category.

You can put in sunscreen. If we have time, we can do right now. But and then you can put the name and for your some screen and i'll give you a number. And then if the number is less than ten.

it'll tell you why are they independent of any like funding? That cushion will probably come up for youtube. Um people say, where does he get her funding? People people get very suspicious about yeah the'd be great.

No so I I am a um tenure professor mouse in I get some salary there because i'm only part time and I have a funder one funder who funds found funded my sperm decline uh second term decline analysis and the publicis my books so he's is a foundation I won't yes but .

interpret yeah .

and it's actually not one.

So no and so there's no reason to think that anything that you're telling us is link to like the food industry, you're an alternative product.

anything? I very, very careful not to endorse any product because I don't want that complication.

Yes, thanks for clarifying that. I went I wasn't suspicious, but but I think nobody ays people have just been taught to you appropriately. So they've been taught to say, well, wait, where does this funding come from? Because a lot of the studies about the that LED to the food, food pure, mid, for instance, people were under the impression that somehow that was biased by companies that we're funding the work.

And I don't know, I haven't done the forensics on that. I don't have the time or the energy. All I know is that when IT comes to what people eat, what IT comes, when IT comes to what people put on their body, IT becomes a very personal thing.

And it's woven in with a lot of psychological, emotional yeah no okay. Um what are a few things that you do and or avoid in light of what you know about these underground disruptions? And by the way, IT goes without saying that you in spectacular cognitive and physical shape of for any age, but it's it's really remarkable.

I I feel comfortable sharing this because someone else published online recently, you are soon to enjoy your what birthday, eighty nine, eighty, eighty. amazing. And with all the talk about longevity, cognitive and physical longevity, everyone thinking, including me, like what does SHE do? Well, SHE avoids all these other cream disruptions, and he has a wonderfully rich life of curiosity and other things.

But yeah, what are some other things that you do? H and avoid in light of what you know for which the mayor may not be controlled. study. But I think we're all just curious, will frame this, says what you do.

So, water or water, I worry about the water, setting water for a long time in my class life. So we actually distal our water. So we have a table top to stiller. My husband, Stephen cleaned IT out is a lot of gunk in IT, by the way, even though with santana go that has clean water, at the end of the day, after you've distill the water.

a lot of you distill the water.

So this is not reverse most OK 呀。 So it's steam distill t and then IT condenses in a glass container. And then we put that in glass containers in the fridge. And so, and its taste really good, by the way, really, really, somebody that was just over. And he said this taste like melt IT snow was lovely.

And use that for drinking, for coffee, for tea, for cooking, too. If you make rice.

you're using still no, no ice bes. You know, whenever I can think about IT, we can use too much because you me too busy always today. But what he doesn't once day, 那 is just the two of us。 So water is important. Um we try to leave our shoes at the door.

Tell me that .

one well does that you bring in um contains a lot of the particular the people of chemicals so that's actually um i'm not one hundred percent good on there but we try try to do that um and i'm careful with the products I put on my face。 I checked them out the way I suggested you know environ working group um and I go to the farmers market.

I always buy organic, always buy organic um but I know that's a cost issue for some people um and an availability issue for some people. But I in some cases go you can do that um some areas where I don't do more of what I show that I think i'm starting to be aware of the um chemicals and clothing. We have been talked about that. But um there is a turns out there is a lot of particularly in is a problem for work out where because you're absorbing so much your sweater, your hot and you're bringing these chemicals into your body, and that may be one of the interventions that we do, get a bunch of athletes to use safe clothing and and traditional clothing and see what your body burn is. That's how you .

know so um iring tard cotton as a supposed to synthetic.

right right? And the dies are important. So you you don't want you want maybe plant race dies. So not my area of expertise I have calling to my work with on this and i'll go with her advice. But i'm just saying there's another area that I think people will soon be paying attention to.

Um there is also the area that is much more difficult, which is what's in building materials and furniture. But a lot of these peas and the flaming returns are in our furniture and in our building materials. And trying to think about how to build, I was asked about safety in a new village is being built in california a about the way. And um it's really chAllenging to think about if you were gonna do this right and you were gonna a build a town that was toxic free, how would you do that? I'm thinking about that.

I'm thinking about the opener of symptoms and doing the exact opposite. We're like the opener. The simpson is like a three eed fish and there's the chemical plant. And i'm just you just to look at the open of the same you the inverse, everything that's there, the universe of everything that's there, including alcohol and take uh you know which is um robust on the simpsons um but interesting.

So in when IT comes to food sourcing, like a but non fruit, non vegetable food sourcing, is there anything we can do? And it's so hard for people to get eggs from farms. And you can, if you go to a farmers market, this stuff can get pretty tRicky, pretty expensive.

And most people listening are not gonna. Be you living in cinnamon where they might have A A neighbor that has chickens or something. Yeah um it's it's a hard problem.

IT is a hard problem and and I think maybe people asking for IT more would help. I don't know. I mean, in some parties go i'm lucky because I can just.

Get you know just on the phone fresh direct order of the and I know it's okay um but um I know that's not the case everywhere. So um I think being aware honestly is a really big step. If you are aware that this is something you want to change, you will find ways to change IT. It's .

interesting because a few years back there was love discussion about dies in children's toys, in particular toys um from overseas. I remember kids are not Young babies always known on stuffin tea and and and there was a lot of attention like, hey, like what's in the sippy cups in my understanding is toys and sippy cups. And understanding is that B, P.

S. Were banned from sippy cups. sallet. Excuse me, back on my based on your work. Thank you so much. Thank you for the clarification truly for the work that LED to that um we we have this um innate thankfully innate reflects to protect our Young, as does every most every species thankfulness.

And we know that baby skin is more absorbent than older skin, we know and so there there are literally laws in place and restrictions in place to make sure that some this stuff is minimum zed in Young kids. But then we sort of after age twelve, we can like, okay, well, to free for all depends on your budget where you go. And so we we can't rely on governing bodies to do this um but I think it's a useful conversation, especially giving your relationship to um skinner avia, which is a fun one to elaborate on to illustrate some of the discrepancy between the U S.

And europe. What sorts of chemicals are banned in europe, in food, in lotions at sea that you're aware of that are prominent here in the U. S. Maybe that's a good filter to to place some of this choice .

making through europe has a, has had a policy called rich. And under rich, you have to show that the chemical is safe before is put into the marketplace. Not so what the way our system is here is put in the markets players. And then if somebody gets worried about that, they might do a study, they might find harm.

Remember how long I took me to find that value connection? If IT was ten years, uh two studies, ten years, ten million dollars by the way so if you're gonna wait for that, I don't know what you given the number of chemicals out there eighty thousand or more um forget IT, you know so so I think the rich policy of testing before something put in the market is making a big difference in europe. And I think that's one reason why they're much Better off those .

animal tests or animal and human tests that they're doing over there.

Whatever defined safety IT depends on the chemical, depends on you know what the product is, I I D can in general.

So so that might be a good avenue for changing legislature here, right to to install something similar to reach solute.

But it's not gonna happen and not I don't think no, no, because there's too many forces against that. It's very, very hard for manufacturer to make changes. I'll give you example.

Um so you know that that you might not know but should know that salads are very prevalent in the hospital setting there. If you think of a tube you know to dialysis, to chemotherapy, to I V, it's all plus. It's all founds, right and that's going into your body. And there was a recently um a bill passed in california that D H P could not be in v bags. It's fantastic as success .

in the actual bag. The bags could not .

contain these underground D, H, P, H. And so so that was a great step forward. But that's like one chemical right in one product.

And that was a battle. So you see how hard IT is to do this. Extremely heard. There is a company, be Brown, which makes hospital products, and they are very forward thinking.

And they set up a factory in florida to make alternative ivy bags out of another product, a polymorphous. And the problem is that we are not sure about the safety of poly olean. So is IT gets really difficult? You know, you can save, remove D, H, P.

But now we scientists have to say, what does IT mean for a chemical to be safe? And we don't know that. I don't mean to dissolution you and you're okay.

That's that's a huge chAllenge that we're up against. We know it's safer. We know it's safer and we know what the bad actors are, and we know the things we don't want to be exposed to. But we have to be careful when we think about what do we want to put in instead.

Yeah, I am thinking about this a former presidents, stanford, who has also happened to be a family friend years ago. He since passed on Kenny when he retired as president stanford when in my understanding is that he went directed the fda and I was just thinking itself like, um when did this happen um because I know he was super into health because IT runner he was very fit well into seventy year hit replacement, keep running or maybe was need replacing. I don't know the guy obsessed with health.

And so I don't think that there's there's a lack of interest in health at the level of like the fda and um but there's clearly a problem. And i'm just going to think of solutions. And IT seems to all boiled down to what we can take control of in our home.

Like when we go to a restaurant, it's chAllenging to know what they're doing in the and and at some point he becomes neurotic to no, although I know people that won't go to restaurants where they you see oil s there's a whole new thing cropping up about avoiding seed oil es um but maybe there there are more significant issues. Who knows the seed oil crowd is pretty, pretty intense. Um and I like olive oil anyway, so I air to that.

But I think if people are interested in limiting their exposure to these underground disrupters, one of the key questions that's gonna up again and again, especially light of pcs and sperm counts, we can't control what happen to us during pregNancy. But once we have some sense of agency over what we put in to our body and how we put IT into our body, do you think that there is a that there's plasticity in resilience to this system? So you know, got forbid if somebody was exposed to a lot of these things are really on, can they by making changes, can they, can they rescue themselves to any degree? no. So it's really just dependent on what your parents did.

Yes, that's not to say that your own exposure that cannot change things further make things worse. But here, here's here's a fact. If a male mother smokes when he's in the warm, then he has a this is a danish study, by the way, fifty percent reduction in spring cap.

If his mother smoke while he was in the room, how much smoking are we talking?

I don't know remember. But the with the reason I bring this up is because there's nothing he can do to change that. okay? If he smokes as an adult, he has, I think, a similar reduction, this firm count, he can stop and his firm will be restored. He can get a sperm health back.

But whatever happened in the warm stays in the woman, if you also is developmental, it's not going to you know, it's going to be there for life. And that's true of the brain as well. So um I think anybody who's thinking of conceiving pregNancy or pregnant has a responsibility to really learn how to reduce their exposure because these things are, by the way, passed on for several generations. It's your child and your child's child because the germ cells for your grandchild are gonna be Carried in within your child.

So germ cells are um not germs as an infectious germs, it's the cells that will produce the eggs that generate hand german. So it's a .

huge responsibility. And I think people should take IT very seriously um that they have you know they're going to be affecting the health of subsequent some labs says seven generations so I don't know that's true but certainly three generational um are affected and um so I should .

mention my book yeah please yeah I believe I mentioned .

in introduction so countdown two words, by the way because if you say countdown in one word, you won't find IT countdown. Um we have two chapters on things you can do, very practical things you can do and also websites you can go to and links you can go to. Now this came out in um a while ago, so twenty one so there are many more things now but I think is a good start.

How lonely are you in this expedition of identifying entertained disrupters in food, in pesticides, in um in the sort of things you're talking about the is there a whole field of this of excEllent people? Are you or you a small team of of people that are against the grain? I I mean, I confess I don't know many people doing the sort of work that you're doing, but know you're the most public facing in prominent. And um I I guess my question is like is the N H funding a lot of this .

sort of thing is not in this international and there is now um a global um plastic treaty under negotiation. By way people .

are .

trying to create get passed by various countries um in international plastic treaty. I can I don't want to talk a lot about IT. I'm not involved that process but I in the process you that you could see if you looked into there hundreds of scientists and concerned citizens and activists and you know, people in legislation who are working to specifically on the chemicals and plastic.

Now plastic is really a bad actor. I I, but IT is not the only bad actor or so I want to just mention that plastic is really important. But you know, pesticides are not plastic and and so on.

So there are many other classes that you have to worry about, but certainly controlling our exposure. Plastic is huge. And um the U S.

About scientists in this area yesterday, the huge amount of science going on for this in this there's um and it's funded by N I agents, funded by you and um primarily I think those of the two two funded ers of scanner via has funding within know in scent of view in countries. So there's a lot of work and a lot of very good people working really hard, but it's a huge problem. And it's been here since well, plastic started rise in popularity thousand, nine hundred and fifty. So we have like seventy five years to battle against, and it's not going down any time soon.

Lifespan is increasing pretty significantly prisoner, in large part because of the reduction in smoking.

in control of interests.

in control of infectious diseases. Um but life span is definitely increasing um wherein user plastics is clearly increased. Um and so I I guess one could argue that we're living longer, but where you are less robust. Then we were less um reproductively competent is that the people .

that are reflected in that long or lifespan were not necessarily exposed early in life, which is when its most critical. So you know, I was born in one thousand nine hundred and thirty six. There was no plastic you know um and there were other things, of course, but you not as they are today.

So um I don't think that you can make the inference that because we're living longer, a plastic growth know the growth of the plastics and trees somehow driving that longevity? Absolutely not absolutely. I think what is driving is decrease and fatlings.

And what's happening is that the shift in population is pretty rama's. We're getting you know, the payment in would used to be like this. I am making a triangle with my heart showing very few people on top and a lot of people on the bottom.

But what's happening is that that's getting inverted. So we're getting more and more people on top and fewer and fewer people on the bottom. Birth rates are way down. Birth weight are way down.

And and so this is an enormous problem for societies, because the people in that small support group at the bottom can drive the society to support the the large grows on top. You two other countries, this one, yes, absolutely, absolutely. It's all over the world.

And and the decline in fertility, in my mind is probably well one of the biggest chAllenges we're facing now because um it's everywhere. It's very cute and there's only limited things we can do to to to counter IT. Um there's a wonderful website called is by the world bank put out by the world bank it's called fertility data.

And if you go in there, you can see what is the fertility every year. But you can put, as you know, plug in a country or a year or and see what the first fertility rate in each country in the world each year and you can see that and what you see is that um a decline about the same rate as sperm decline, by the way, about fifty percent in fifty years. And um the critical point for fertility is to so what's that mean that's called replacement and that two people replace themselves with a total fertility of two actually two point one because you have a little bit of last two point one, you're good to go a society when you fall below that, you're shrinking.

And there are many countries in the world Better below that, including the united states. And for example, the worst i've seen as actually south korea, which is at zero point seven eight, japan is at one. So large parts of the world are just not replacing themselves. And why that is, maybe another discussion or we can talk Better. I don't know if you want to go into that, but it's not just from out for sure you .

along those lines but let's talk about egg counting quality. You mentioned the P C O S results earlier um before we were on mike, you mentioned an interesting study that you did about the use of electric blankets um and assessing whether not the use of electric blankets had impacted um egg number equality and women and the answer .

was IT actually what we looked at in women i'm sorry to correctly but IT was the the outcome of their pregNancy, fertility and and I got pregnant.

How did that turn out that clarification?

But but um i'm sure there will be a lot of other studies that i've looked at that I I just have been away from that field for a long time. But so far, I don't see convincing evidence that the use of cellphones or um you know other exposure to electronic magnetic radiation are affecting our presidencies and our fertility. That's not to say is not happening, but I have not looked at IT and I don't like to make statements about things. I haven't.

Yes, my understanding of the cell phone data of uh for perm count and motility A K quality um is I discuss a mental analysis uh covering this is on the podcast previously is that there are some heat effects of cell phone news and keeping the phone in the pocket that may that may want to be careful here impact sperm count and motility quality. But um direct effects of of em s on sperm, there's no evidence that IT is disrupting sperm is at least .

to my knowledge, honestly have to say just gona say I don't know but I do know that um heat is related to fertility firm count, right? And um you can look at the birthrates as a function of the month of conception and you can see that, for example, in warm month, in warm climes, uh, there's less. Yeah so there he he does play a role. But how much that's tied to cell on you? I I think that's something that's now under investigation by lot of groups and um we'll see what they find.

Yeah the data sitting more than a few hours a day on um having legs that are very large as the consequence of obesity or even just legs that are large, heating the grow those data fairly um I would say solid um terms of the relationship to reducing sperm count. Um heat is not good for sperm, which is why the scrotum has its um the features that IT does to move that the testicles further or i'm closer to the body um going back to egg um accounting quality, there is some evidence that um gw girls are entering puberty earlier um but that women are also undergoing parameter earlier. Do we know what that is the consequence of there .

are several newspapers actually on the manual age showing relation to a number of chemicals, but I can cook them to right now I don't remember which class is well is that they looked at. But um I think that's right. I think there is growing evidence that earlier you know fewer is also called premature ovarian failure um so that women are just not producing the eggs as long as they used to.

But um the I just want to say something about the fertile can we go back to factually? Um so when this comes up and there i'm sure you've seen the literature there's a lot of literature on this that say fertility is going down, you know fewer children being born a people say, well, that's a good thing because it's less of a load on the planet, which is another discussion and then they say, well, this is due to choice. The people are choosing to have fewer children and they're choosing to um delay childbearing till there are no longer as feral if they're using more contracts tion.

Women are more educated. They're entering the workforce. All of these social factors are given us the reason for decline in fertility. And um I just need to point out whenever I hear this, that is not just human fatlings that's declining. Um the number of species that are becoming extinct is increasing rapidly. And there is there been for at least forty years evidence that those pesticides that affect us are affecting animals as well. And um so the decline in fertility and nonhuman species cannot be attributed to delay trimming or use of contraction tion .

rent or rent crisis, right? It's interesting because we hear we usually hear first about species that are about to go extinct that are badly endangered. I don't know what the proper languages but about to go distinct um like the floor in a pansa or we hear that you know there are these species like there's very small subset of them left uh the black footed ferrets in montano I think one fairy name is scar face sired something like three hundred litters that then LED to the eventually they started out out reading because if you do too much in reading, obviously it's not good. And but then they were able to at least partially recover, maybe fully recover, those populations.

And people forget the the domino effect of these ecosystems when one species is compromise, like when the black footed fairs, I know about its sound kind of silly, but were compromised in terms of their populations. The prairie dog population went up. The grasses were getting eaten far more and then there's all these downstream consequences and on bugs.

And you know and i'm not expert in this, but one doesn't have to be an expert understand like you you move one pin here and in the whole web moves and um and so or you move one node in the in the whole web reconfigures and and that's what nature has been doing for millions of years, right? But at some point IT is conceivable, no unintended, that we are going to be the species on the endangered species list, right? I mean, that's not like like an outrageous size I movie. They they at some point humans might be added to the enders.

The exception that we have were very clever. And so we found a lot of ways to do medical assisting, you know.

conception, right? X, Y, the, the, the literally gentle gravity of one sperm forcing IT taken to a to um fertilize the egg um is something we've covered on this podcast in our fertility epo de with another crafted erred in a solo epo de I did um there are questions that people have reasonable questions about whether or not the um the offspring of those types of scenarios are the same as the the the genetic um probability experiment. As you mentioned before, of having you know two hundred million burn and then letting nature select the one that is most robust in that .

environment yeah and and you know the number of technologies is increasing. We're very clever species and and um for example, I don't know if you've heard of commented genesis, so IT is now possible to create um an embro from uh a spring cell from a skin cell. Skin cell can produce uh a sperm cell, internet cell.

You you give you the right transcription factors and .

you you can um so this is of interesting.

exciting what is I think the females uh there are some way in which two female vault res or maybe a single female vultures can um create offspring in the absence of a mail. There's also three party I V F. I don't know you're where this where this was devolved, where there is a matter central disease.

You can take the a two eggs, one from the intended mother. You take the nucleus so you get the DNA, you put IT into an egg of somebody that where the DNA has been removed, but where the spindles, which are rich with my contra, are from a typically a much Younger post. And then you use a sperm.

So it's actually three parents, the spinal of one mom, the DNA of another mom and this firm they do this in the U. K. For my to concentrate disease. It's still illegal in the united states as far as I understand, and it's done in other countries. Um and in theory legal .

issues must be yes .

but in theory this would allow women of any age provided the can they still have eggs um to have their DNA propagate forward because they the DNA can be put into a Younger egg that. Has the spinal quality that allows for um know the production more selves. I mean this is this canon has been done in humans. So where I mean .

you and I won't think of all the things that will be developed you know in the next ten, twenty years to check, you know to meet the chAllenge of declining fertility by ordinary conception. I mean, I think that's that's how we're gone to solve this problem for us. We're going to just be smarter and smarter about how to do a medical assistance transaction. And and then the question is going to be it'll take time to know this is whether there are effects in the offspring, adverse effects in the offspring. Um it's it's the little tRicky because for example, if you use this firm of an inferable couple and you see luti, I say the sun is is up feral that's born that way um but you do IT you know in the test tubes, whatever and then you can say, well, maybe um that's because the father was in feral and he's got inherit dance from his father from that you know i'm saying so you can know whether the if you see an adverse effect, an international spring, you have to be very careful. That is not something that theyve gotten because of problems that lend the couple to seek assisted reproduction.

You see you following you. Yeah, super chAllenging, fascinating problem. So in the anticipation of this, sit down together, I put a question out on x formerly notice twitter.

I let people know that I hosting an expert in underground disrupters in dalai and pesticides, ed, reproductive implications. That said, I and I asked for questions, and they came up with a huge number of excEllent questions, many of which you've already answer. Things like, um is tap water safe? What can we do to our tap water? You mention you do still water.

My understanding is that rivers smos is provided. There's remineralize ation is being difficult, say can also be effective at sea. Um there are a lot of questions about um cosmetics and laundry detroiters. Um I don't know we discuss laundry deterrence. What do you use in terms of laundry detergent um or that is personally one can find.

I don't even remember.

okay.

don't go by my problem. Okay, for one thing, i'm not gonna pregnant .

anytime soon. The I I believe there are some solutions um relate to the like instead of bleach, people can use um hydrant proxy.

speak about specific products OK. Um you know I can tell you who can and you might like to talk to her. So remember I mention million marker. The company that did the inventory not the you other are a company but so they look at a million marker I think .

you'd .

be interested okay yeah and and the person who runs at jawa is a china american um who uh and a friend of mine and were gonna writing a grant together um and he participated in the film so our participants center so what if you go a million marker, you log on and if you agree to pay whatever is hundred one ninety nine, I think you you send your urine that give you your cat.

You say that your urine in and I tested for all these things in your urine so you know what in your body you might really think about might be interesting and and then if you pay another hundred, I think you get this this counselling and some bb, because you can see the different levels. So but he knows all about products. I don't know about products because it's a moving target. I don't and also, I don't like to talk about product names because that sounds like i'm endorsing them.

Um right. And we won't expect you to give product names. And um i'll follow your recommendation that you just gave somebody asked about food dies, just generally the dies and food is hard and incredible study recently that science magazine covered.

So science magazine, very rapidly, of course. yellow. Number five, I forget what the precise name is, but the thing that makes shadows s really bright.

They put IT on the bEllies of adult mice. And IT literally makes them translucent so you can see the organs. It's wide. It's so scared I sent IT a rogan and he, I won't he was like, wow, his version of I was like, I also said, well.

you probably said holly .

should right work and I going to say what I said, but I was he didn't course there were no questions about household items. Again, we're not looking for specific products but for instance, soaps, body wash, cleaning spray, floor cleaners, launcher related cleaners, do any or all of these contain integrant disruptors unless one is careful to to find the ones that not okay um receipts. How serious is that? Should we be concerned about the B P S and other grant disrupters on receipts?

So and my suggestion is just ask an electronic receipt and then you don't have to deal with IT, but they're definitely absorbed you know into your body.

Any impact of um underground disrupters of the sort we've talked about today on .

the five rode system prison .

ly in in the bad direction.

I mean this is an interesting point. Let me just say another world about so um the there was an ongoing study in the feral islands of and they studied p fos chemicals and showed that um people who fish there there were Fisher people and they they ate the fish and they were getting high levels of p fos in their body and had nesses published them effects on their own immune response.

So my concern I don't know anyone looked at this is given everyone's vaccination are is a response to vaccination now altered by these chemicals? I don't know, but I think it's a really interesting question. But there there is a whole field of the effect of these chemicals on the side system, and there's a lot of evidence that its adverse.

Can these underground disruptions be detoxed from the body? Is there anything that we can do? What's the quickest way um things like sweating um other ways to improve liver clearance of these underground disrupters.

The answer that depends on the chemical the chemical that water solvable, in particular, the values in the best finals leaves the body in a matter of hours. You don't have to do anything, you just have to stop taking them in, right? The forever chemicals, the P.

S. Chemicals, pesticides are. And though, so what has to do with how they're handled by the body? Are they put into the, you know, if they're about you put them out. If they're fast, valuable, they're gonna around for a long time. So IT just depends on the chemical structure of the chemical of the there was .

a question about nonstick pans, and you covered that earlier. If someone had to pick between nonstick coated pan's versus seasoned iron pants.

no question, earn. There's no risk associated with seen season on a number .

of other questions, such as why does europe have such more stringent laws? That said, a lots questions about atrocity, questions about pointless and fragrances. Ces you've covered and I I must say that um as I scroll through these hundreds of questions, if not more, um you've done an amazing job at clarifying for us what's known what is not known and essentially where it's a probably should avoid, definitely avoid. And look, we we just don't know, right?

And know I have to distinguish between we don't just don't know and I just don't know it's not I mean, there are many things that I don't know 是 a huge field。 So you know maybe with some you know ask the question of chat G P G 哼 yeah will .

be certain to um ask ChatGPT and we will be certain to ask um um other experts in in these areas。 But I just want to make very clear, ee and everyone listening and watching truly appreciate the work that you've been doing this area for number of years, were so grateful that you took that airline flight with your this chemist, that you mentioned, that you stored the urine of those pregnant women, that you analyzed IT, and that you've gone down this path of of expLoring things that are really disruptive to our health and potentially to the existence of our species.

As um you know, as we talked about earlier, there is the possibility that we go extinct not because of the media, but because we failed to replace ourselves and that we failed to replace ourselves because we destroy our biological ability to replace ourselves. I think it's hard for people to internalize that very real possibility because we feel ourselves sitting in traffic with thousands of other people in others. Too many people write this kind of thing, but want to thank you for the work that you've been doing and continue to do for your willingness to write books and educate the public on podcast like this and others because um these are topics that we're pretty emotionally loaded for people.

I don't think anything gets people quite as inflamed as the idea that what they've been ingesting and exposed to um especially in terms of consumables that theyve spent their harder and money on, have been um m harming them and they're offspring in generations to follow that there's something that really land deep in in that way. But you you've also offered us a lot of possibility and a sense of agency over these these things. And i'd love that you weave your and statistics and probability three background into all of this because what comes through is intense curiosity, intense rigor and a real desire to do good. So thank you so much for joining us and please come back again as you make more discoveries.

It's been really fun.

Thank you for joining me for today's discussion with doctor shana swan to learn more about her work and to find a link ter excEllent books on these topics. Please see the links in the showed captions. Also, I should mention that if you're interested in learning more about microplate tics and underground disrupters, I did a solo episode, the huberman lab podcast, on that topic, and that is also linked in the shown out captions.

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