Ya, my biology professor had a theory that it was because of estrogen being introduced to the water supply through birth control. After the pill was introduced breast size started increasing and girls started reaching puberty earlier. Makes sense.
So! It’s actually kinda crazy how accurate your professor might be. Because progesterone, the chemical in birth control, does indeed break down into estrogen under the right circumstances. The components of broken down progesterone pass through the body via urine, enter the water system, and - this is the important part - is far too small and difficult to be collected or filtered out of the water.
So people taking birth control have absolutley added an insane amount of estrogen to the water supply. And most tap water now does have low levels of estrogen in it because people have been taking birth control for 60+ years.
In that same time, the average age of puberty has continued to fall.
So, it sounds a bit wild, but that theory is far more feasible than most realize.
Can estrogen in water become bio-available through drinking it?
What kind of concentrations are you talking about? There’s possibly a big gap between enough to be detected and enough to affect someone’s hormonal regulation.
In that same time, the average age of puberty has continued to fall.
As it did before birth-control pills were in widespread use. And another confounding factor is that modern birth-control pills have much lower doses of hormones than the originals did, so we need to look not only at the rates of usage, but at the amount each pill contains that gets excreted.
And filtration is not the only water treatment technique. The use of highly reactive treatments such as chorine can break down such chemicals.
There’re also other endocrine disrupters in the water such as pfoa/pfos etc. We should absolutely be filtering our tap water or drinking RO water if we can.
I learned something new today.
I also did hear that girls go through puberty sooner because girls now are fatter than they used to be due to a number of factors.
I always heard it was partly due to all the hormones we put in cows to keep them pregnant, and then we drink the milk.
That makes no sense. Hormones in your food will just be broken down in your digestive system.
Ya, my biology professor had a theory that it was because of estrogen being introduced to the water supply through birth control. After the pill was introduced breast size started increasing and girls started reaching puberty earlier. Makes sense.
So! It’s actually kinda crazy how accurate your professor might be. Because progesterone, the chemical in birth control, does indeed break down into estrogen under the right circumstances. The components of broken down progesterone pass through the body via urine, enter the water system, and - this is the important part - is far too small and difficult to be collected or filtered out of the water.
So people taking birth control have absolutley added an insane amount of estrogen to the water supply. And most tap water now does have low levels of estrogen in it because people have been taking birth control for 60+ years.
In that same time, the average age of puberty has continued to fall.
So, it sounds a bit wild, but that theory is far more feasible than most realize.
Can estrogen in water become bio-available through drinking it?
What kind of concentrations are you talking about? There’s possibly a big gap between enough to be detected and enough to affect someone’s hormonal regulation.
As it did before birth-control pills were in widespread use. And another confounding factor is that modern birth-control pills have much lower doses of hormones than the originals did, so we need to look not only at the rates of usage, but at the amount each pill contains that gets excreted.
And filtration is not the only water treatment technique. The use of highly reactive treatments such as chorine can break down such chemicals.
There’re also other endocrine disrupters in the water such as pfoa/pfos etc. We should absolutely be filtering our tap water or drinking RO water if we can.