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How to Safeguard Your Hormone Health & Fertility | Dr. Shanna Swan — Transcript

by Andrew Huberman · 23,191 words · 3,308 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

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0:00welcome to the huberman Lab podcast
0:02where we discuss science and
0:03science-based tools for everyday
0:05[Music]
0:08life I'm Andrew huberman and I'm a
0:10professor of neurobiology and
0:12Opthalmology at Stanford School of
0:14Medicine my guest today is Dr Shauna
0:17Swan Dr Shauna Swan is a professor of
0:20environmental medicine and Public Health
0:22at the mount siai school of medicine she
0:24is a world expert in how exposure to
0:27various toxins and compounds in the food
0:30and environment impact our reproductive
0:32Health she focuses on how these
0:34compounds in our air in our food supply
0:37in our water supply in cosmetics even in
0:40household items impact the developing
0:43fetus children and adults at the level
0:46of their reproductive biology so things
0:48like testosterone and estrogen and the
0:51pathways within the brain and body that
0:52are impacted by testosterone and
0:54estrogen but also how all of those
0:57things in our environment and that we
0:58put into our body impact our health on a
1:01daily basis and our long-term health so
1:04during today's discussion you will learn
1:05why fertility rates are indeed
1:07dramatically dropping from year to year
1:10and have been for quite some time now
1:12you'll also learn why testosterone
1:14levels are dropping why sperm counts are
1:16dropping why things like polycystic
1:18ovarian syndrome are increasing in women
1:21and what we can do about it in fact
1:24during much of today's discussion Dr
1:26Swan emphasizes the things that you can
1:28do every single day and that in fact
1:30turn out to be very simple they involve
1:32certain things to do and certain things
1:34to avoid in order to limit your exposure
1:37to these environmental toxins and their
1:40impact so by the end of today's episode
1:42you will be highly informed by the world
1:45expert on endocrine disruptors and
1:47environmental toxins and you will also
1:49be highly informed in terms of how you
1:51can have agency how you can take control
1:54of your health in relation to these
1:56various compounds before we begin I'd
1:58like to emphasize that this podcast is
2:00separate from my teaching and research
2:02roles at Stanford it is however part of
2:04my desire and effort to bring zero cost
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6:44huberman and now for my discussion with
6:47Dr Shauna Swan Dr Shauna Swan welcome Dr
6:52Andrew hberman thank
6:54you I'm super excited for today's
6:56conversation I've followed your work for
6:58a number of years
7:00I've seen some of your appearances on
7:02other podcasts and I got to see you
7:06speak while we were both in Copenhagen I
7:09was in the audience you didn't know I
7:10was there but incredible stuff that
7:12you've been doing at as a researcher as
7:14a public educator as a
7:16writer let's kick off by just asking the
7:20basic
7:21question are there things in our
7:24environment including our food that are
7:28diminishing our reproductive and overall
7:31health and if so which are the ones that
7:34you think about and perhaps if you could
7:37just mentioned a few of the more Salient
7:41um maybe even shocking but Salient
7:43results that you've observed over the
7:45years like what was what was the the
7:47kind of like wo result or results that
7:50have really um steered your attention in
7:53the last a couple of decades and I'll
7:56just say what we were talking about
7:57before we were on the microphone which
7:59is that you are a skeptic you are not
8:00somebody who walks out into the world
8:02and looks for things that could be
8:04messing up our our biology messing up
8:06our health and yet you've found some so
8:10if you could just share with us uh what
8:12you've observed and what you find really
8:14compelling and important for people to
8:15know about we can dive in there that was
8:17a lot of questions I could probably talk
8:19for a long time feel free I won't speak
8:21until you're done no but I want to break
8:23it up let's break it up so I think the
8:25first question about was are there
8:28forces chemicals
8:30agents in the environment that can
8:32affect our reproductive Health yes okay
8:35so my answer to that is yes I think
8:37there's no question about that the
8:40question comes down to when and in whom
8:45and uh what dose and so on and so forth
8:47but whether there
8:50are let's just say broadly things yes of
8:53course um the category that I focus on
8:58are man
8:59made primarily man-made chemicals
9:03although I do also include the influence
9:08of other factors factors of choice for
9:12example sleep exercise that kind of
9:14thing we can talk about that but let's
9:16just focus here on the on the chemicals
9:18because I think that's what led me to do
9:22a lot of my research and to write the
9:25book that I wrote and um so my um thesis
9:31is that chemicals in the
9:33environment that's a very broad class so
9:36we'll have to say some chemicals in the
9:38environment at the right time to the
9:41right organism affect fertility okay so
9:46and let me just say fertility is one
9:49area that I focused on but actually this
9:52class of chemicals that I'm primarily
9:54interested in are those that affect the
9:56body's hormones so those are known as
10:00hormone disrupting chemicals or
10:02endocrine disrupting chemicals um
10:05hormone altering chemicals whatever you
10:07know there's a lot of names but that
10:09helps you focus on where to look for the
10:13effects because if it's hormone altering
10:15you can now have something to really ask
10:17okay here's a chemical does it affect a
10:21hormone which hormone when how and then
10:25you start that's almost an you know
10:26laying out an experiment right there
10:28right so so so focusing in on hormone
10:31disrupting chemicals I think is useful
10:33absolutely yeah and I think much of what
10:36we'll talk about today probably centers
10:37on the estrogen and testosterone
10:40Pathways as they relate to
10:43masculinization or
10:45feminization right of the brain and body
10:47right and sperm and egg right quality so
10:51I'm a reproductive epidemiologist I got
10:54there in an indirect path I think
10:57probably my work on um
11:00oral contraceptives led me there most
11:03directly and oral contraceptives are
11:06endocrine disrupting chemicals that's
11:10what they're designed to do right that's
11:12what they're designed to do change your
11:14body's hormones your reproductive
11:16hormone so it's interesting you know way
11:19back when when I worked on the study at
11:21Kaiser on oral contraceptives which was
11:24the largest study of its kind in the
11:26world actually trying to figure out were
11:29they adverse effects of oral
11:30contraceptives if so you know for whom
11:33and when and how much and so on and so
11:35this was a very great study and um
11:38Coming forward in time
11:41um I you know I studied environmental
11:45chemicals not so much
11:47Pharmaceuticals um for quite a while in
11:51when I was at the California Department
11:53of Health Services and and then I had an
11:56aha moment
11:59um I was flying to Japan with my friend
12:05John Brock who's a chemist at CDC
12:09wonderful chemist and you have long
12:12flights we're talking about this and
12:13this and he says shaa you should look at
12:15thades and I'm going why should I look
12:18at thot I never heard of thades right
12:21and he said well we can now measure them
12:24at the CDC and we see they're in
12:26everybody they're in women of
12:28reproductive age
12:29Fact one fact
12:32two colleagues at the ntp have
12:35shown something they are calling the
12:39phalate
12:40syndrome and so he explained what is ntp
12:44National toxicology program sorry than
12:46for using alphabet super right National
12:49toxicology program a governmental you
12:52know Research Center and um and their
12:55job is to look at chemicals and see what
12:58is the toxicity so it could be
13:00reproductive it could be carcinogenicity
13:02it could be neurotoxicity that's what
13:04they do and um so they had signaled out
13:10these thids as being reproductively
13:13toxic and specifically to males and
13:16specifically when exposure is in utero
13:19pregnant mom is exposed to
13:23phalates and
13:25somehow the fetus is disrupted yes if
13:29you don't mind I'd like to know um is
13:31Mom ingesting phalates in the form of
13:33food is she inhaling phalates are they
13:36landing on her skin what are the modes
13:38of entry into the body of the mom that
13:41um let's just assume it goes through the
13:43placental barrier into the fetus and is
13:45impacting fetal development right so in
13:48those experiments it was through food
13:51but we are exposed in all those ways you
13:53mentioned every way that something can
13:56get into our body thies get in there but
13:58let's come back to that let me go to the
14:00experiment at ntp so what they did at
14:02ntp National toxicology program they
14:05they fed um mother rats various doses of
14:09these various thades and um and what
14:13they found
14:15was no changes in the females or not
14:18that they found at that time they're the
14:20female Offspring female Offspring sorry
14:22but in the male offspring they found
14:25that the genitals
14:27were I summarize it by saying
14:30incompletely masculinized so I'll
14:32explain what that is so for that I have
14:34to back up and say um something you know
14:38probably know very well but I'll just
14:39explain it the genital tract initially
14:42is a ridge it's a single Ridge it's the
14:44same in males and females it's not
14:46sexually dimorphic at the beginning and
14:49then under the influence of testosterone
14:52in a very specific window called the
14:54male programming window in rats its days
14:57I think 9 to 12 of gestation so very
15:00short window to orient people I think
15:02rat mouse gestation is about 21 days or
15:05so yeah okay so so so it's for us it'll
15:08be early first trimester okay but that
15:11comes later so so um at that time if
15:15they feed their mother that chemical in
15:20her food then her male offspring are
15:23born with changes in his genitals or
15:27more likely to right and so what they
15:29tend to have is a smaller
15:32penis um less Descent of the testin is
15:36more likely to have unended testicles um
15:39there are internal changes that we
15:41didn't get into in our human study
15:44because we can't look there but um the
15:46epidemis there are changes and so on the
15:48whole genital tract is altered and the
15:51most important measure for me as it
15:54turned out and for
15:55humans um and perhaps for Animals is
15:59something that the scientists animal
16:02scientists had studied for a long time
16:04for actually 90 plus years but had never
16:09been studied in humans and that is the
16:12distance from the anus to the genitals
16:15this collection of changes in the male
16:19genitals was given the name the thallid
16:22syndrome now you're a physician and you
16:25I challenge you to think of any syndrome
16:30aside from
16:31alcohol you know they FAL alcohol
16:34syndrome of course there's a syndrome
16:36but not what syndrome is attached to a
16:40chemical class just for um technical
16:43purposes I'm a PhD not a clinician but
16:46um but but I worked on neural
16:47development for many years and and then
16:49prior to that some endocrine stuff so
16:51I'm I'm um fasile with the general terms
16:55um one that comes to mind would be for
16:58instance
16:59um the thalidomide babies right a
17:02miscarriage anti- miscarriage drug that
17:04changed limb development that's a very
17:06extreme example um I would say for um in
17:11um human de normal development what I'm
17:15most familiar with are the or early
17:16organizing effects of androgens that
17:20convert to estrogen on external
17:23phenotype which is basically nerd speak
17:25for during development the Y chromosome
17:28uh produces it leads to the production
17:30of a number of genes and eventually
17:32proteins through RNA Etc that um are
17:36including testosterone and
17:39dihydrotestosterone that in the brain
17:41organizes the brain male and causes the
17:43growth of the penis or organizes meaning
17:46it is it sets up the penis to then
17:48during puberty when the penis is exposed
17:50to testosterone and estrogen and DHT
17:53it's a bunch of things not just
17:54testosterone the penuts Grows Right so
17:57that and lots of other right other
17:59things right so so the um the the word
18:03soup that I just uh you know put forward
18:05is basically saying that there a lot of
18:07things in development where hormones set
18:10up a uh a potential to respond to other
18:15hormones later it's not that
18:17testosterone grows the penis during
18:19development it does that but more so it
18:22establishes a potential for the penis to
18:24grow when exposed to things later during
18:27puberty do have that right right right
18:29as far as the name goes which is the
18:31thid syndrome there is thalidomide it's
18:34not usually called theide syndrome but
18:37it could be so you're right about that
18:39but it's extremely rare and I there is
18:42no
18:44environmentally you know a chemical in
18:45the environment uh as opposed to a
18:48pharmaceutical that is given a syndrome
18:50so this is very very unique and and so I
18:54thought wow John's telling me this on
18:57the plane right something in the
18:59environment that is basically having an
19:01endocrine and body disruptive effect at
19:04least on par with alcohol fetal alcohol
19:06syndrome and phide syndrome right yeah
19:10so when well at this point it was only
19:13animals right because John was telling
19:16me about the ntp study which was in rats
19:18and so I
19:20thought wow you know I like Puzzles so
19:24my first question was is this happening
19:27in humans
19:28you might ask that you know it's a
19:30natural thing to ask great question and
19:32then I thought how would we find
19:36out and answering that
19:39question took me 10 years okay and so if
19:44you think
19:45about okay thight in the
19:49mother changes in the genitals of The
19:53Offspring connect them how do we do that
19:56right so we have to start with th and
19:58the mother so how do we know that well
20:02fortunately or
20:04not I had stored a lot of urine from
20:08pregnant women from a study that I was
20:11doing on sperm count I just got the
20:14women's urine coincidentally if you will
20:16I thought well save it you know it's not
20:19expensive and not hard - 80° freezers
20:23doesn't take a lot of room put it in
20:25there so I had this urine save from
20:28pregnant women
20:30and then I knew from John that we could
20:34look in the urine for thite
20:37metabolites so these are products that
20:40the body forms when they're exposed to
20:41phalates and they you can measure them
20:44in urine so I thought okay I could get
20:47that urine I could look at the thite
20:49metabolites and then I'd know what the
20:51mother was exposed
20:53to and based on the animal data we have
20:56good evidence that it actually makes its
20:59way to the
21:01fetus so then I thought okay then maybe
21:04there's a change in the
21:06babies so then I had to get the babies
21:09so
21:10fortunately I had done this study on
21:13pregnant couples pregnant women and
21:15their partners and I was able to call
21:18them and say would you come in and let
21:20us measure your babies's
21:22genal right how willing were parents to
21:26let you do that that seems they were
21:28okay most of them were okay with that
21:29yeah yeah well they trusted us you know
21:31they had been in a study with us and and
21:34you know we were reputable those babies
21:37were still um young but not newborn so
21:41this was a a while later the the babies
21:43that we actually got were on average I
21:45think about a month uh 12 months old so
21:48not ideal maybe because the rats had
21:50been measured at Birth the rat genitals
21:54have been but that's what we could do at
21:57that time yeah the reason I asked is
21:58there's always the potential for ongoing
21:59phade exposure to the newborn absolutely
22:02so some but I suppose in either case
22:05you're able to draw some potential link
22:08between or potentially draw a link I
22:10have to be careful with my language
22:11there um between phade exposure in utero
22:15and ex utero and these external
22:17biomarkers I mean given that the
22:19critical window is quite short and quite
22:21early by the way let me just say when
22:23the rats they did a lot of work on this
22:25critical window and when the rat moms
22:27were exposed before Day N it did nothing
22:31and when they were exposed after day 12
22:33it did nothing so it was only the
22:36exposure during that critical window is
22:40very delicate and it's by the way true
22:42of the brain as well so there you
22:44teasing out what is the critical window
22:46is one of the challenges that we have
22:48when we work with these chemicals so I
22:50wasn't so much worried about exposure in
22:53the delivery room and you know in their
22:57feed as in the first of life because I
22:59knew it was unlikely to change these
23:02measures do other things but maybe but
23:04not these measures so then the question
23:07became kind of what you were asking is
23:08what do we
23:10measure what do we actually measure and
23:13if you think about a newborn r or Mouse
23:16their genitals are pretty small and
23:19there's not there's it's very difficult
23:22to know exactly how that corresponds to
23:25the human genital system and what you
23:29see at Birth you know when you spread a
23:33boal and and so I got a pediatrician at
23:37in Los Angeles who worked with me on how
23:40to make that translation and how to
23:43do do this exam and that took us quite a
23:47while because we really wanted to come
23:48as close as we could what was clear was
23:51that the the anus part of it was easy
23:53you go to the center of the anus so that
23:55was easy then what's the other landmark
23:58what's the the genital Landmark so it
24:00turns out there are in males two and in
24:03females there are two as well so but
24:05let's just talk about males so for males
24:07the best place to measure and actually
24:10closest to the rat measurement is the
24:13place where the tissue changes uh where
24:17the scrotum um inserts and that it goes
24:20from rugat to
24:21smooth tissue and that point is pretty
24:24clear pretty easy to measure um the
24:27other measure that was the anos scrotal
24:29distance and the other measurement we
24:31took was the anop penile distance and
24:34that was the insertion the anterior
24:36insertion of the penis the part closest
24:39to the body the closest to the Head yeah
24:42closest to the Head yeah and and that
24:45was not so obvious because you don't
24:47have a change in tissue there so where
24:49exactly do you put your caliper and um
24:53we had a lot of discussion about do you
24:55press down do you what
24:59uh you know how where exactly do you
25:01make that Mark and actually the anos
25:04chronal is the measurement with the
25:06least variance because you can measure
25:08most precisely but the anop penol is is
25:11is another measurement and um and then
25:14in you can do something similar in
25:16females and we did that but that's we
25:19maybe don't have to go into that now so
25:21we designed this exam and we did a lot
25:24of work to make sure it was repeatable
25:27across Examiner
25:29and what we finally did was bring the
25:31mothers in bring the babies in um and um
25:37got three measurements and then on every
25:3910th baby we got an independent examiner
25:42to get three measurements so we could
25:44look at within and between examiner
25:47variation you understand this is the
25:48first time this had done been done this
25:51way in humans there was a Mexican study
25:53that tried to do this and I never
25:57learned very much about it and I was
25:59excited that they had done this but I'm
26:01not sure how it relates to this so I
26:02just mentioned that out of honesty you
26:04know there's somebody in Mexico did this
26:06but um to my knowledge this is the first
26:09time it was used as a toxicological
26:11measure in
26:12humans right so we were um we did that
26:17study we related those measurements to
26:21what CDC had measured in the urine of
26:23our women collected while they were
26:26pregnant and we found to Sal Thal
26:30syndrome could you explain what the
26:32correlation was between phalate
26:35metabolite levels which is I believe not
26:38not by number because I don't remember
26:39it anymore but but there was a
26:41significant um let's just take the AGD
26:45the AGD of mothers who had higher levels
26:48of
26:49three the most anti-androgenic phades
26:53I'll tell you what those are in a minute
26:55had significantly shorter
26:58aner gental distance and then I have to
27:00say that which I haven't said should
27:04have that anal distance is actually
27:05dimorphic so it tends to be 50 to 100%
27:09longer in males than females that makes
27:12sense if you think about what's going in
27:15that
27:15space there's a lot of real
27:18estate in in males between the anus and
27:22you know let's say the penis penal
27:24insertion much more than in females so
27:27it's natur that that will be longer but
27:30that that's that's an air and that I
27:33began doing some work in other looking
27:35at other species and it turns out that
27:36that's true in all Maman species except
27:40two and one is the hyena all right and
27:44one is the elephant so in the
27:47hyena I'm just saying this because you
27:49be amused by it I think well I you know
27:51about hyenas I do I know more about
27:53hyena genitalia than I'd like to admit
27:56um and I can tell you why after you
27:58educate us but I'll make I'll keep my um
28:00explanation brief but I'm very familiar
28:02with hyena genitalia so I um I have I
28:08know Steph Glickman who works with a you
28:11might know him too he works in Berkeley
28:12with he was my instructor when I was a
28:14graduate student at Cal and I used to
28:17run in Tien Park I suppose I'll tell it
28:19now and there was a colony of wild
28:21hyenas but they were behind chain link
28:24yes it's actually a favorite hike of
28:26mine up the Strawberry Canyon Trail yeah
28:28and um I did that trail a good friend of
28:30mine uh Brian pgas who's now a professor
28:32of the University of Chicago worked on
28:34the Prairie vs that were also housed at
28:36that facility and um a fun thing to do
28:40was to go see the hyenas with
28:42Steve um they're brutally dangerous
28:46animals um and Steve has tons of stories
28:49about them we we should probably resist
28:51our temptation to spiral into that may
28:54maybe sometime I'll do a little um like
28:56evening chat podast cast where I I tell
28:59Steve Glickman stories he's a delightful
29:01person and um yeah those uh let's just
29:04say this the female hyenas have
29:05clitorises larger than some of the male
29:08hyena penises and those females give
29:10birth through those clitorises yes as we
29:13both know so you will not be surprised
29:14to know that the female HD is longer
29:18than the male right because they're
29:19heavily androgenized exactly as I recall
29:22by andersin Dion as actually I don't
29:25know that it became popular during the
29:27era uh of steroids in professional
29:30baseball because andin diione was being
29:32used pretty uh um frequently in baseball
29:36at that time anyway we have to be we
29:38could go down the spiral of of of uh but
29:42also in terms of behavior the female is
29:44the alpha right right they eat first yes
29:48they're physically and um hierarchically
29:52dominant in in hyen so yeah it's really
29:56interesting isn't it that they would
29:57have a long longer more masculine eneral
30:01distance elephants we won't go into now
30:03but they're kind of Midway in many
30:05things so including they're they're
30:07about equal interrenal distance in males
30:10and females other than that humans and
30:14other species male anal distance is 50
30:17to 100% longer however so three thades
30:22DL hexal Thal
30:24DP dbal Thal DBP and butal benzil phid
30:30bbcp are the most
30:34anti-androgenic testosterone lowering
30:37phades and those are the ones that were
30:40associated with a shorter indal
30:43distance in males in human males human
30:46males and animal so we we replicated
30:50that animal study in
30:53humans and then because you know this is
30:56how it is in science I had to do it all
30:57again
30:58right so I started a whole new
31:02study um and that study is still going
31:06on the children are still being followed
31:09I think we started in um
31:122012 um the paper first paper on en
31:16General distance came out in 2005 had a
31:18pretty big impact and um so so these are
31:22are studies where you're looking at the
31:25anogenital distance in um
31:28relatively newborn humans then tracking
31:31that distance no that's a different
31:33tracking is another study okay this is
31:35just two studies on demonstrating the
31:38Thal syndrome in human males okay so the
31:42first one I described the second one the
31:44replication and the second one is the
31:46one that's going on still so um and
31:49whether what it does to their
31:50reproductive function we don't know the
31:52kids are only 12 years old now so so we
31:55we would like to know that and we will
31:57know that okay but I have another answer
31:59to for you about that so so we started
32:02the second study and the second study
32:04which is called Tides which is the
32:07infant development environment study um
32:10by the way these are both in four cities
32:11in the United States um and
32:15um there we did it right so we got the
32:20urine in the first you know early urine
32:23because we knew that could be important
32:24we didn't have that option in the first
32:26one remember those urine samples
32:28accidental we got them when we could
32:29right and we got repeated urines one in
32:33each trimester to look at the effects in
32:36different trimesters and then We
32:38examined the baby at birth which is what
32:41the rats so we came much closer to
32:44replicating the the rodent study and we
32:47saw it again I'd like to take a quick
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34:21more thall exposure equates to Shorter
34:25uh anogenital distance in males it it um
34:29was approaching the distribution in
34:31females um it sounds like that that the
34:33distributions moved more closely
34:35together yes yes right yes although it
34:37wasn't the females that moved sorry the
34:39male distribution became more like the
34:41female became more uh right femin could
34:44say feminized but more female like in it
34:46and they but these boys also had smaller
34:48penises less Descent of the testes um
34:52smaller scrotums so they were smaller
34:55you know everything was in their genital
34:56area are all the secondary sex
34:58characteristics of puberty in males
35:01Adams Apple facial growth um thickening
35:03of the vocal cords therefore lowering
35:05the voice Etc are those all later
35:09activating effects of hormones or are
35:11there precursors to those that are
35:12present in in um in males because in
35:16mice as I
35:19recall like like I couldn't I couldn't
35:21tell you like we call it in the
35:24laboratory people always chuckle at this
35:26but it's like sexing the animals when
35:27you you know look to determine if it's a
35:30male or female when they're when they're
35:31really young you have to like look
35:33carefully at first right and then you
35:35get pretty good at it um as they get
35:37older it gets easier but when the mice
35:39are um uh you know feet down back up you
35:44know you can't really you can't really
35:46tell you can't really tell right the as
35:49the mice get older their testicles
35:50become visible in the males from even
35:53from above but you know as far as I know
35:55there aren't really external markers so
35:57you may have found the one truly
35:59external biomarker of maless of maless
36:02and and so I I I do want to say one
36:05thing about females because then that'll
36:06lead me to my conclusion about the role
36:09of this measure um
36:12so if the
36:14mother is exposed to more
36:17testosterone than
36:20expected you might expect that her
36:23female offspring would have a more male
36:26in a genital dist is that the case yes
36:29so it's a bidirectional effect can we
36:32also presume that if the mother either
36:34secretes or is exposed to more Androgen
36:36then the males can become hyper male no
36:40we' never I don't know what that would
36:41be we never saw anything that would be
36:43hyper male um so the the yes I said to
36:49you was the result of a study uh where
36:51we looked at
36:53the girls born to women with PCOS so
36:57women with cosos is you know have excess
36:59testosterone
37:01polycystic sorry polycystic ovari that's
37:04good we've talked about it a little bit
37:05before in the podcast it's a um It's
37:07associated with my understanding is It's
37:09associated with um elevated levels of
37:12androgens that's right and these women
37:15often have facial hair and you know they
37:18not just the moms but the the people the
37:20women with PC yes have elevated
37:23androgens yes not just we're not talking
37:26about pregnant moms anymore right um and
37:29so in our study population we did a
37:31search for women who had diagnosis of
37:34PCOS and took that as a marker of higher
37:37testosterone exposure and then looked at
37:39the girls and yes those girls had a
37:41longer quote more masculine interal
37:44distance what what age group were you
37:46looking at in the INF in the infants oh
37:49the PC was at was at diag at pregnancy
37:53at the time they were pregnant so
37:54presumably people between their like
37:56somewhere in their 20s out to their 40s
37:58yeah yeah
38:00so adult human females who have PCOS
38:04tend to we know they have higher levels
38:05of androgens but they also have more
38:09maleik anogenital distance they do not
38:12their daughters do their daughters do
38:14thank you for that clarification they're
38:16daughters and so put this
38:19together this
38:21measure is a look inside the
38:26womb at the Androgen level that the
38:28fetus is exposed to at that time which
38:31is amazing because you can't go in there
38:35without disturbing you know you
38:37can't uh and so this is very early first
38:41trimester you can't even get you know
38:43flu fluid and so on so this tells you
38:46this is like a readout of what was
38:50in you know in the fluid at the time so
38:55then your next question
38:58was what does this mean for later
39:02fertility yes yeah what what is the
39:04impact of this early Androgen exposure
39:08in to female Offspring or um let's just
39:12say reduction in functional Androgen
39:15exposure to male offspring the reason
39:18I'm using this uh you know loop-to-loop
39:20language as as you probably know but for
39:23the audience not trying to complicate
39:25things here but a lot of the mascul
39:27izing effects of hormones in fetal
39:30development is actually testosterone
39:32that's converted into estrogen so it can
39:34get pretty tricky right and um but maybe
39:37for sake of Simplicity today we'll just
39:39stick with Androgen effects on
39:42masculinization with the understanding
39:44that some of those effects are the
39:47consequence of testosterone being
39:48converted into estrogen right it's just
39:51that people form such strong
39:52associations falsely that you know
39:54testosterone is male mess
39:57that's not true and and and estrogen is
40:00femaleness and they both and it just
40:02gets really murky but for for the time
40:04being
40:05um you identified an external biomarker
40:09of fetal Androgen AKA
40:14masculinization via the mother that's
40:17right got it okay
40:20so then we asked the question you've
40:23asked and many people asked who cares
40:27what what why would
40:29we worry about a boy having a slightly
40:33smaller anog gal distance well I can
40:35tell you there are many boys that are
40:36probably worried about it right now
40:38right they probably got the ruler and
40:40the calipers out right now just you know
40:44um but I'm going to answer that question
40:46right so I told you that our kids are
40:50too young they're not producing sperm
40:51right now right so we had to go to an
40:56adult population
40:57right and so we went to a population of
41:01college students in Rochester New
41:03York and what we did there was make an
41:10assumption which is based on animal data
41:12it's true in animals we've been
41:14following the animal path here all along
41:15so in the animals my colleague Earl Gray
41:19who did these studies said his name is
41:21Earl Gray yeah that's cool
41:24yeah um he said a GD is
41:28forever anogenital distance is forever
41:31now what that means is it's not like
41:33your anogenital distance today is what
41:35it was when you were born of course
41:37you're a bigger person but that means
41:38adjusted for body size right so if you
41:42assume that AGD is forever if you're
41:43born with a short for your size AG then
41:47when you're 20 you'll have a short for
41:49your size
41:50AGD okay can we assume that okay so if
41:54we assume that then if we get these
41:57college students to come in and we can
42:00measure their anogenital distance we're
42:02getting a reflection of what it was when
42:04they were Bor okay and then we can get
42:08their sperm
42:09count and then we can see if they're
42:12related and that's what we did so we got
42:15this population of volunteers paid them
42:19$75 and one of the guys said for 75
42:22bucks you can do
42:24anything and so what we did was we met
42:27measure their anal distance and then we
42:30got them to give us seamen sample and
42:33complete a questionnaire and things you
42:35do in a study we'll link to that study
42:37but I have a couple questions about the
42:38controls in that study just for sake of
42:40people understanding how a study like
42:42this would be done I don't expect you
42:44recall all the all the details but um
42:47you're adjusting for body size and body
42:49weight yeah height weight what are the
42:52factors that would scale here that would
42:54allow you to normalize um in other what
42:57you're trying to do is backtrack to what
42:59it likely was at at um no we didn't
43:01actually try to go back what we let me
43:03just tell you what the results were in
43:06this group of
43:07men if they had a longer anogenital
43:11distance they had a higher sperm count
43:14got it so you were correlating those two
43:16measures right and then if we wanted to
43:19say something about we didn't try to say
43:21anything about how it was when they were
43:23born we just said okay we'll take that
43:25assumption that this reflects their
43:27early
43:28AGD if we want to say something about
43:31early AGD and sperm count so it's easy
43:35to say AGD is related to sperm count
43:37because we measured that we saw that a
43:40correlation that's published okay if we
43:42want to say their early AGD at Birth and
43:46their sperm
43:47count that's a leap of faith in some
43:49sense because we don't have their early
43:52for these guys in Rochester we didn't
43:54measure their AG were there conditions
43:57of being a participant in the study such
43:59as uh refraining from alcohol cannabis
44:02Etc in the 90 days prior 90 days being
44:05the the duration of spermatogenesis yeah
44:08I don't remember that these are college
44:09students so presumably some of them are
44:11drink okay so but in the end it it was a
44:14robust um a robust link and then U Mike
44:18Eisenberg who you might know my
44:19colleague at Stanford he's been on this
44:21podcast good good so he's a colleague of
44:23mine too and um he uh looked at
44:27um men in infertility clinic and those
44:30who had born children and those who had
44:32not born children and the men who had
44:34born children had a longer in gental
44:37distance than men who had never born a
44:39child never born but were trying yes
44:41right these were not people who opted
44:43out these were exactly these were people
44:46who were who are who were having
44:47challenges with fertility versus success
44:49with with uh by the way you know the
44:52question of how you measure AG in an
44:55adult man is a different question
44:57question then how you measure it in a
44:58newborn and we did a lot of work on that
45:01and Michael helped with that too so it
45:03sounds like um oh and may I ask were the
45:06sperm counts that were on the let's just
45:08say the
45:09lower um like the
45:13lower cortile where the quote unquote
45:16lower sperm counts like functionally
45:18lower because I always wonder about this
45:19like it's come up in a number of
45:21discussions like with Robert spolski
45:23with Mike Eisenberg and now I'm asking
45:24you you when we hear that sperm counts
45:26are going down down are they going down
45:28to the point where fertility is is
45:30impacted that's really the the one of
45:33the I think functional questions so I'm
45:36going to let's lay aside the question of
45:39AGD right that's an really interesting
45:42but let's talk about sperm
45:44count okay so um if you there's a a
45:49beautiful
45:51study um among pregnancy planners out of
45:55Denmark
45:57um quite a long time ago um and in that
46:00study what they did was take couples
46:04that were trying to
46:05conceive that had never or not recently
46:09I can't remember used oral
46:11contraceptives and then they
46:13saw what the sperm count was and how
46:16long it took them to conceive right time
46:18to pregnancy in relation
46:20to and what they showed is a really
46:24interesting curve which has never been
46:27correct it to my knowledge it's it's
46:28it's what I use and what I think people
46:30use which is that if you I wish I could
46:33draw it here wish I had a BL you should
46:34have a board a white board the problem
46:36is a lot of people are listening but
46:37maybe we you know we can talk people
46:39through it sorry so so just think about
46:42um a curve where you go all the way down
46:44to zero that would be no
46:46sperm um and then as the probability of
46:51conceiving is zero so you're looking at
46:53sperm count along you know is the x-axis
46:56and
46:57months to
46:58conception um and um what you see is
47:02that if you have no sperm you don't have
47:04no conception if you go up to around 40
47:0645 there's a steep increase so the more
47:09sperm you have 40 45 million million per
47:13milliliter and this is million per Mill
47:16uh so just pure concentration not number
47:18of motile sperm this is just how many
47:20sperm we're not talking about quality
47:21we're Talk number a number and and when
47:24you have 45 to 50 million per Mill
47:28and below it matters a lot what your
47:31sperm count is you know people say it
47:32doesn't matter yeah if you get in this
47:34range where the probability of
47:36conception is dropping off really
47:37rapidly it matters a lot and then
47:41they're around 45 to 50 it starts to
47:43level off and then after that after
47:46certainly after 100 probably 75 it
47:49doesn't matter at all so 100 million
47:52sperm per milliliter yes of semen yes
47:56okay so can you see this okay so it so
48:00when people say does sperm count matter
48:02for fertility yes it matters a lot if
48:05it's low and no it doesn't matter at all
48:08if it's high so you just we just have
48:11too many sperm I mean I don't but humans
48:15you know and there's so nature runs a
48:17probability game overproduced sperm
48:19right some of those will be high quality
48:21some will be low quality depending on
48:23their age when they were that is when
48:25they were generated or their conditions
48:27you know or their conditions how much
48:28heat exposure Etc so nature runs a
48:30probability game that's right hoping
48:32that the the the best quality sperm will
48:37fertilize the egg right um so below
48:4245,000 uh excuse me below 45 million
48:45milon per milliliter below 45 million
48:47sperm per milliliter of semen the sperm
48:50count really matters it drops off
48:52precipitously that's right once you get
48:54up to 75 100 million per Mill
48:57of sperm then it's all good to you're
49:00good to go right and sperm counts uh
49:03range anywhere from you know it could be
49:05low 8 n 10 million per Miller in the
49:09very low situation it could be zero in
49:11some people right all the way up to 400
49:14yeah million there's a huge range that's
49:16right and that's a function of age it's
49:17a function of genetics it's a function
49:19of presumably thied
49:22exposure yeah I'd like to take a quick
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51:11we were on to the fact that sperm counts
51:12are dropping there's a relationship to
51:14anogenital distance and there's a
51:16relationship between anogenital distance
51:17and Thal exposure yeah and then I asked
51:20the question you know okay we're hearing
51:22about sperm counts dropping but is it
51:24functionally relevant are is that one of
51:27the reasons why fertility is dropping
51:29and we've also got the female side where
51:31we've got women with elevated androgens
51:34so we can talk about that a little bit
51:36later but um and then of course we have
51:38the socio uh the
51:41sociobiology uh piece where people are
51:44opting out um or it's also economics in
51:48some cases um opting out of having kids
51:51right um so let's go back to sperm count
51:53because we haven't really talked about
51:54that it's a kind of a different path
51:57and my introduction into phalates was
51:59not through sperm count right it was
52:02through this question of my colleague
52:04ask me you know you should look at this
52:05and challenged and I looked at it and
52:07that was really really interesting
52:09Journey that I went on okay so that but
52:12there was a separate for a while Journey
52:15that I was on and that started in the
52:18late 1990s when um I was asked to join a
52:23committee of the National Academy of
52:25Sciences
52:27and that committee was assembled to look
52:31at the question of
52:33whether hormonally active chemicals
52:36endocrine disrupting chemicals in the
52:38environment posed a threat to human
52:41health because at that time it was like
52:44well yeah we hear about this but should
52:46we care right and
52:49so that
52:51committee wanted to consider a study
52:55that had come out of Denmark a few years
52:57earlier which claimed that sperm count
53:01had dropped 50% in 50 years wow that's a
53:06huge drop that's what we're seeing worse
53:08than that by the way now so okay they
53:11said to me I was the only statistician
53:13on the panel would you look at this and
53:16see if we need to consider this in our
53:19deliberations and as I mentioned I'm
53:22skeptical and I looked at it and I
53:24thought H I don't think so
53:27that was my initial reaction and that
53:29was
53:30because first of all I didn't know who
53:33had written this I just saw it in a
53:35journal and and it was not very big and
53:38not very many figures not very much data
53:41and I thought of it and I thought that's
53:44that's a big claim for a little little
53:46paper you know um but I'll look at it
53:49because it's important and so what I did
53:53then was to think about all the fact
53:56factors that we epidemiologists call
54:00confounders things that might have
54:02caused that decline if it wasn't real
54:06biologically right and so we could think
54:10of some of them together um you know
54:13maybe the method of counting sperm had
54:14changed so that later methods counted
54:17fewer sperm in the same sample that's
54:20certainly possible right um but it
54:22turned out that wasn't the case cuz they
54:25actually had all used the same method
54:27um and maybe the men had changed so
54:30maybe there's a you can't get a sperm
54:32count at random you have to get somebody
54:34to volunteer right so who were these men
54:37were they very different you know in the
54:39early part of the study and the late
54:40part of the study in a way that maybe in
54:42the late part of the study there were
54:43men with lower sperm gut and they were
54:46more concerned you
54:48know maybe they were more obese that's
54:51pretty plausible obesity is related to
54:54se sperm Camp fertility
54:56um and maybe they smoked more and maybe
55:00and so on and so forth right so what I
55:03did was to get the 61 studies go through
55:08them and try to extract information on
55:10all the factors that could explain the
55:13decline so I created a multivariable
55:17model and ran that
55:20model and to my
55:23astonishment when I was done
55:27the slope of the decline was exactly the
55:29same to the first decimal
55:33place it had not explained anything and
55:37I was like oh my God this looks like it
55:40might be real and and for those
55:42listening what Dr Swan is describing is
55:45being the excellent scientist that she
55:47is she went and looked for all the
55:50things that could impact the result that
55:53were not related to what the main
55:55conclusion
55:56seemed to be which is that sperm counts
55:59were going down over time right right
56:02and uh this is really important um to
56:05because I think what we're talking about
56:06here in parallel to the main
56:07conversation is how to do really great
56:09science especially in human populations
56:12that are out there living you know some
56:14of these men probably you know smoke
56:17some cannabis I'm not saying that
56:18reduces sperm count it might reduce
56:19sperm amount mot motility however we
56:21covered that in the podcast now that all
56:23the Cannabis folks go well uh you know
56:25so and so got so and so pregnant when
56:27they were doing swing a lot of weed and
56:29I always say okay well there are a
56:31number of other factors right you know
56:32but alcohol there's um frequency of
56:35ejaculation right the the requirement to
56:38abstain for 48 to 72 to hours to up to
56:41five days prior you know Etc all all
56:44these these factors that men may or may
56:46not Faithfully report but you assume
56:49that if some are telling the truth and
56:50some aren't that there's an equal
56:52distribution of that so all the
56:53different things right right this is so
56:55very different than looking at for
56:57instance um ovarian reserve like the the
57:02number of eggs where you use ultrasound
57:04and you use amh levels and um sure
57:07things can impact that but it's a little
57:09different than when taking uh sperm
57:12counts so thank you for doing the the
57:14studies so carefully and for repeating
57:16them so many times I mean many of the
57:17studies that you've done are are um you
57:20you've done followup on these sperm
57:23count studies across multiple years you
57:25know as you said the first study was in
57:261992 then you did one in 2017 then there
57:29was one again there was an update I
57:30noticed online so you are extremely
57:33thorough you and and it probably
57:35reflects your um early training in math
57:38and statistics and probability Theory
57:40you're not somebody to just kind of go
57:42in and go oh yeah like in these people
57:43that eat a few too much of this then
57:45there's a little bit less of that so I
57:47just wanted um if today's discussion
57:49feels like we're really um we're Laing
57:52through this um that's intentional um
57:56and it's important for people to hear
57:57these these kinds of um claims are not
57:59the sort of thing that you could people
58:01make them all over all over the board
58:03but work like this needs to be done um
58:06with an extremely meticulous eye and
58:08consideration of all the variables well
58:10good scientific method yeah yeah yeah
58:12and I would say especially with human
58:14epidemiological work because of the
58:16number of potential confounding
58:17variables right right so so when I saw
58:21that and actually did another study to
58:25select my own studies and not accept her
58:2761 studies that had been published that
58:30Elizabeth Carlson had published uh so
58:33new studies came up to more recent times
58:36went back further um did it again found
58:38exactly the same thing okay so there
58:40were three you know three looks at that
58:42and I thought okay I'm going to accept
58:44this now this is sperm count is
58:47declining and
58:49why I turned to the why okay because up
58:53and down now we hadn't said anything
58:54about why we just said is it doing that
58:57yes okay if it now we believe it is
58:59declining why and so then I thought
59:03quite a lot and talked to people and
59:05ruled out genetics because it was too
59:07fast it's two generations it's too fast
59:1050 years two generations so if it's not
59:12genetics then it's environment and so
59:15what is it about the environment that
59:17could do this so I asked
59:21okay in the
59:24environment there could be things that
59:26are making sperm decline so if you think
59:30about how you might look at that you
59:32might design the study that I designed
59:34next which was another study and by the
59:37way this preceded the AGD so it just so
59:40we had four cities in the United States
59:42that we picked with different
59:44environments and then we got men to come
59:46in and we used the same equipment at
59:50each place we used the same method of
59:53selection them selecting the man the
59:55tech technicians were trained centrally
59:58at UC Davis we had very good quality
1:00:00control so samples were sent around
1:00:02every quarter to make sure that
1:00:04everybody was measuring things the same
1:00:06way we didn't want drift right and then
1:00:10we got their urine um and that's how I
1:00:13had those urine samples so if you wanted
1:00:15to do this study and you wanted to get a
1:00:18representative sample of
1:00:20men where would you go because you can't
1:00:23I can't ask a guy in the street to give
1:00:25me a SE sample right I mean it's not
1:00:27it's not something you get very you know
1:00:29so I thought how can I get a
1:00:32representative
1:00:33sample and which would teach me
1:00:35something about a larger population
1:00:37called the parent population so here's a
1:00:39sample it should represent the parent so
1:00:41how do I ensure that and what I decided
1:00:44was to sample partners of pregnant women
1:00:48because pregnant women all come to
1:00:50Medical Care almost all and if their
1:00:53Partners will give a seaman sample then
1:00:55we have a representative sample and when
1:00:58we know what we're looking at so that's
1:00:59what we did so this is a the Seaman
1:01:02study is the study of Partners of
1:01:05pregnant women and um and of course
1:01:08they'll have slightly higher SE quality
1:01:10because they got their partner pregnant
1:01:11but um and so we had their urine we had
1:01:16their blood and um we looked at their
1:01:21semen quality and then we decided to
1:01:25look at pesti pdes and the reason we
1:01:26look at
1:01:27pesticides um was because there was a
1:01:30lot of gradation across our for centers
1:01:33in pesticide use and what we found was
1:01:36really extraordinary that men who were
1:01:39living in Central Missouri where I was
1:01:41living at the time who were in the
1:01:44middle of a agricultural belt where
1:01:47there was spraying all the time for
1:01:49soybeans and so on um those men had half
1:01:54as many moving sperms
1:01:56as men in
1:01:58Minneapolis whoa
1:02:01whoa huge right and then we went one
1:02:06step further and within Missouri we
1:02:09looked at a sample of men who had very
1:02:12high sperm parameters and very low sperm
1:02:16parameters and showed that five
1:02:18pesticides were significantly higher in
1:02:21the men with the low sperm parameters
1:02:23that include motility morphology you
1:02:25know all app so these are pesticides
1:02:27that are being sprayed in the air on
1:02:29crops you mentioned soybeans what other
1:02:31what other types of crops I don't know
1:02:33okay I don't remember so so plant and
1:02:36fruit crops presum was yeah whatever
1:02:39whatever they were growing in Columbia
1:02:41Missouri at that time and and just to
1:02:43make sure I understand that it's not
1:02:46that the men corn and soybeans corn and
1:02:48soybeans but we're not talking about
1:02:50eating corn and soybeans we're talking
1:02:51about living in an area where pesticides
1:02:54are being used by
1:02:56is it is it still called dust crop yeah
1:02:58we didn't go into how they got these we
1:03:01just looked in their urine and there
1:03:02were the metabolized the metabolists
1:03:04don't get in their urine unless they
1:03:06were exposed exposed through the air or
1:03:08exposed by eating corn and soybeans we
1:03:10don't know we don't know okay we don't
1:03:11know um but this was not a particularly
1:03:15you know we didn't we didn't sample
1:03:16Farmers Only or anything like that so
1:03:19whoever came into the remember how we
1:03:21got these men their wives were pregnant
1:03:23they were having prenatal care at the
1:03:25University of Missouri so that's where
1:03:27we got them whoever happened to come in
1:03:29to the prenatal clinic and agree to be
1:03:32in our study they're the male you know
1:03:35urine M's urine was measured for for
1:03:38these pesticides I'm sure a number of
1:03:40people including myself are
1:03:42wondering in what other products are
1:03:47these five pesticides present um are
1:03:51these commonly used pesticides or is it
1:03:53something about they were they're called
1:03:54the the iine pesticides atrazine is was
1:03:58the most widely used and it's a huge use
1:04:01around the world I mean it's highly you
1:04:04know one of the most the largest
1:04:05commercial pesticides um so these were
1:04:08very big players in the pesticide field
1:04:11a relevant um theme there would be uh
1:04:13maybe we could take a moment and talk
1:04:15about atraid and its effect on uh male
1:04:18sexual behavior in amphibia and we'll
1:04:21come um come back to the the the sperm
1:04:24cies because um when I was a graduate
1:04:26student at UC Berkeley I had the
1:04:28wonderful experience of taking a course
1:04:30from the now I think you mentioned he's
1:04:32Aden there are multiple Deans on
1:04:34campuses Tyrone Hayes is a wonderful
1:04:36researcher um who established a link
1:04:40through his research between atrazine
1:04:43exposure and um male sexual behavior of
1:04:47amphibia yes could you elaborate on that
1:04:51result yeah so Tyrone first caught frogs
1:04:56in the wild uh in environments that were
1:04:59more or less exposed to atrazine and
1:05:02showed effects on development and sexual
1:05:05behavior then he in his lab he actually
1:05:07exposed them so he knew exactly who was
1:05:10exposed and how much and he showed that
1:05:14the and I can't tell you what percent or
1:05:16what you know but a significant number
1:05:19of frogs exposed to this pesticide
1:05:22atrazine chose to mate with other male
1:05:26frogs tried to mate with other male
1:05:28frogs presumably unsuccessfully well
1:05:30they CL they mounted them he has photos
1:05:32of the male males mounting males and so
1:05:35presumably this is a neural change that
1:05:39occurred neuroendocrine change but
1:05:41ultimately neural since mounting
1:05:43behavior is controlled by actually we
1:05:45now know the the um hypothalamic nuclei
1:05:48that control this David Anderson who's
1:05:50been on this podcast has people in his
1:05:51laboratory that including a former
1:05:53graduate student of mine um
1:05:56uh working on on this specific issue of
1:06:00what the what the the circuitry um is
1:06:03um that's a remarkable result it's been
1:06:07kind of
1:06:08um you know used and misused out there
1:06:11in the in the in the media and in
1:06:13popular culture um but if nothing else
1:06:15it suggests that the organization of the
1:06:18neural circuits and neuroendocrine
1:06:20Pathways that control
1:06:22um sexual I don't want to say part like
1:06:26because his mating thing this the frogs
1:06:28aren't monogamous but um uh sexual
1:06:31preference are um significantly impacted
1:06:35by this by this atrazine yes and and it
1:06:38suggests that that there other
1:06:40environmental chemicals can as well and
1:06:43we I don't know how if we'll have time
1:06:45to go there but I did work on
1:06:49neurodevelopmental outcomes in relation
1:06:51to prenatal phid exposure and so I think
1:06:56the overarching idea here is that the
1:06:58brain like the genitals is sexually
1:07:02dimorphic and there's many people by the
1:07:05way who will take offense at that really
1:07:07yeah I think there's I mean going back
1:07:09to the the work of Frank Beach and the
1:07:12psychology department at UC Berkeley I
1:07:13know um showed this in beagles it's been
1:07:16it's been shown in pretty much every
1:07:18species tell but it's not a better worse
1:07:20I think this is what people need to hear
1:07:21like dimorphic does not mean better
1:07:23worse it means different right right and
1:07:25that there and there are for example
1:07:28advantages to
1:07:31spatial
1:07:32um reasoning in a male that which are
1:07:36related to testosterone you right you
1:07:38know that so I mean I think there yeah I
1:07:40mean my understanding of this literature
1:07:42and I'm not an expert in this particular
1:07:44aspect which is the behavioral
1:07:46phenotypes but you know like the meteor
1:07:49preoptic area of the hypothalamus is
1:07:51known to be sexually dimorphic dependent
1:07:52on testosterone converted into estrogen
1:07:55during development etc etc and there's
1:07:57just so much evidence of this um how it
1:08:01links to behaviors is can I think can be
1:08:04reasonably placed into um ethologically
1:08:07relevant um uh evolutionarily logical um
1:08:12arguments when talking about rodents or
1:08:14beagles or even reesus macak monkeys I
1:08:18think where people get um a bit inflamed
1:08:22is when people try and take the sexual
1:08:24dimorphisms have been observed in animal
1:08:26brains or in even in human brains and
1:08:29Tack those to specific abilities or or
1:08:33or lesser abilities I think that's when
1:08:34people sort of go wait a second like I
1:08:36have much better sense of direction than
1:08:38my husband and you go well yeah like you
1:08:40know and then you go well does that mean
1:08:41that she has higher testosterone than
1:08:43him and then maybe and then and pretty
1:08:44soon you're you're in uh almost at no
1:08:48man's land a no person's land of of of
1:08:51comp of confounding variables right but
1:08:54I really appreciate that you raised this
1:08:56and also that you said it and I didn't
1:08:57because I I feel safer that way but look
1:09:00there is a a very
1:09:02simple outdated questionnaire and it's
1:09:06play Behavior it's called the psai it's
1:09:09been used for years have you I don't if
1:09:12Rough and Tumble play yes yeah yes and
1:09:15there are 24 questions on there and they
1:09:17are
1:09:19sexually goric I guess you could say
1:09:21that there you know my child likes to
1:09:24play with dolls my child likes to play
1:09:25dress up my child likes to play rough
1:09:28and tumble uh Etc and we gave that
1:09:32questionnaire to our
1:09:34population um and looked at the
1:09:38answers uh that the mothers gave both in
1:09:40our population by the way and a Swedish
1:09:42population of a colleague there uh Carl
1:09:47borag and Gustav borag and and um what
1:09:51we
1:09:52found higher thite levels these
1:09:56anti-androgenic phics were Expos you
1:09:59know associated with
1:10:01less masculine male typical play in our
1:10:04male
1:10:05boys so this is thid exposure to the to
1:10:10the mom baby is born in the young human
1:10:14child four four yeah four year I think
1:10:16it was four years of age four years of
1:10:17age less Rough and Tumble type play
1:10:20that's right among the boys whose
1:10:22mothers were exposed to Mor phalates
1:10:24during a critical period of
1:10:25development now you can see that's a
1:10:27politically loaded issue now I mean you
1:10:31know yeah well I think we're I mean
1:10:33let's let's let's have some fun with
1:10:35this in in in the scientific
1:10:38sense the the notion of dimorphism is
1:10:41you know okay male and female brains are
1:10:43different right which and male female
1:10:45defined in those almost all those
1:10:46studies as presence of a y chromosome
1:10:48and then people say well there's some
1:10:49there's x y y and then there's XX y okay
1:10:52but most of the time you're talking
1:10:53about XX chromosome or X why chromosomes
1:10:55at Birth forget everything else for the
1:10:59moment these are always distributions
1:11:02this is what I think people need to know
1:11:04we're not talking about these are not
1:11:05this is not uh you know two hills of
1:11:08data separated by a valley these are
1:11:11overlapping distributions right right so
1:11:13you get males with a quote unquote
1:11:15female likee distribution you get
1:11:16females with a quote unquote maleik
1:11:18distribution and I think as long as we
1:11:21acknowledge that then we're just talking
1:11:23statistics right we're not we're not
1:11:25placing any cultural or um any value on
1:11:29it really whatsoever right but but if
1:11:32you you could make the analog to the
1:11:34inter gental distance it's kind of
1:11:35similar you know you have the same
1:11:37exposure salid exposure you have
1:11:38something changed statistically we don't
1:11:40see huge differences in the boys
1:11:43genitals uh and and we don't see huge I
1:11:47don't we know these kids have not been
1:11:49scan so we don't know how their brains
1:11:50look but based on their answers we don't
1:11:53see huge differences we see tenant we
1:11:55see they are more
1:11:57likely if they had been exposed to these
1:12:00stots to want to play dress up and have
1:12:03tea parties more likely doesn't mean
1:12:05that they're all going to but that's the
1:12:08direction and so on so I think we have
1:12:10to just think about more likely not
1:12:12absolute yeah and of course there are
1:12:14also the the sociobiological variables
1:12:18such as um if a young boy has a sibling
1:12:23that's a sister there's more lik be
1:12:25dressed as right she's if he has two
1:12:28older brothers there might be more Rough
1:12:29and Tumble play happening in the house
1:12:30and I have some friends that are women
1:12:33who have older brothers and those women
1:12:35are uh you know some of them roll
1:12:37Jiu-Jitsu or do you know and I know some
1:12:39women who are only children who do
1:12:42martial arts and and and fight right you
1:12:45know so so I think that um none of this
1:12:47is deterministic right as we know I but
1:12:50but let me just add we did control for
1:12:52the sex of The Sibling older sibling and
1:12:55we also asked about the parents attitude
1:12:58just toward same-sex play so what would
1:13:01how would you feel if your child your
1:13:04male child played with dolls would you
1:13:06be discouraging would you encourage
1:13:09because it has a lot to do with what's
1:13:10in the house you know if you say did
1:13:12your child play with dolls well what
1:13:14what if there were no dolls this is
1:13:15super interesting to me I I don't want
1:13:17to reveal too much but I um just because
1:13:19it's not it's just an N of one but I
1:13:21grew up in a household where I have a
1:13:23sister but then after a certain age I
1:13:26received very strong messages about what
1:13:29sorts of um play were um were gender
1:13:33appropriate um and I think I also just
1:13:35naturally defaulted to there were a
1:13:37bunch of boys that lived in my
1:13:38neighborhood they had older sisters so
1:13:40all the sisters hung out together it's
1:13:41kind of interesting and all the the
1:13:43younger brothers pretty much hung out
1:13:44together and the the guys that weren't
1:13:46didn't have siblings or had Brothers for
1:13:47siblings so there was a really strong
1:13:49Divergence but I grew up in the SE that
1:13:51was in the 70s and early ' 80s when
1:13:53things were let's just say culture was
1:13:55more dimorphic then clearly right I mean
1:13:57there were television shows like All in
1:13:59the Family which the entire basis of the
1:14:00show was the wife going back to work and
1:14:03the husband being confused about I mean
1:14:04nowadays people will go like what that's
1:14:06wild I have to ask because I know people
1:14:08are wondering and I'm wondering what are
1:14:11some non-pesticide
1:14:13sources of
1:14:15phalates that um we have agency over
1:14:18that we can take control over right so
1:14:20let me ju correct you it's not that
1:14:24sources of phalates necessarily
1:14:26pesticides there are phalates in
1:14:29pesticides um but that's not the worst
1:14:33player in um the in the story if you
1:14:37look at the different classes
1:14:40of exposures that are hormonally active
1:14:43right pesticides are phalates are
1:14:49bisphenols like bisphenol a BPA BPA
1:14:52certain metals are there's a posos
1:14:55chemicals there's all these different
1:14:57classes right and if we want to go
1:15:00excuse me into what in our daily life
1:15:04exposes us to these things that's
1:15:07another story that um we we can talk
1:15:11about but they're going to be different
1:15:13depending on the class right so let's um
1:15:16throw our arms around all of those for
1:15:18the moment and I'll just ask you given
1:15:21that you're an expert in this area
1:15:25what are the top three to five sources
1:15:28of endocrine
1:15:30disruptors that we have agency over and
1:15:33let's forget about pregnancy for the
1:15:35moment since we're all out of the womb
1:15:37if we're listening to this um some
1:15:39people will be pregnant as they listen
1:15:41to it but um would you say it's you know
1:15:45drinking out of plastic bottles is it
1:15:47laundry detergent um is it you know
1:15:51rubber tires that are cascading down on
1:15:53us through the air and we're in ing them
1:15:55I mean presumably all of the above but
1:15:57what are which ones that we have agency
1:15:59over do you think are the most let's
1:16:01just say concerning where people could
1:16:04make better
1:16:06choices um I would say foodborn
1:16:10exposures exposures in the food in the
1:16:13food packaging in the food storage in
1:16:16the food in the cooking of
1:16:18utensils um we can go through the
1:16:22various things but um
1:16:27we're doing that all the time you know
1:16:29we're eating all the time we're getting
1:16:31food into into us and these are bringing
1:16:35in in a very you know in a way that we
1:16:37have some control over some agency over
1:16:40uh you know we can make changes in our
1:16:42Foods um very close to that is drink you
1:16:46know food and beverage um
1:16:51so
1:16:53I first of all I've talked about this a
1:16:56lot I've written about it in my book I'm
1:16:58also as you know involved in a movie
1:17:00where in the movie that might be a good
1:17:02time to talk about that what what we do
1:17:04in the movie the movie is about
1:17:07six couples that are
1:17:10infertile okay they haven't been able to
1:17:12conceive in 12 months that's the
1:17:14definition and um then a company that I
1:17:17work with a million marker out of
1:17:20Berkeley has a trained staff that
1:17:23interviews them not only them but anyone
1:17:26who signs into to this company
1:17:29interviews them and ask them what they
1:17:31use what do they use for their faal
1:17:34facial care what do they use for their
1:17:36shampoo what do they use for their
1:17:37cleaning products and their laundry
1:17:39detergent and their what do they store
1:17:41their food in and on and on and on so
1:17:43this's this long inventory that they
1:17:45take of all products that people are
1:17:47aware of using okay and um based on that
1:17:53we identify
1:17:55likely bad players in the list so how we
1:18:00do that is another you know we can talk
1:18:02about that later but um then in the film
1:18:07and in this little It's actually an
1:18:08experiment that I designed and we're
1:18:11called an intervention and we are then
1:18:13intervening in their exposures by
1:18:17changing out these things that they told
1:18:19us so we will tell them you know don't
1:18:23use any product with fragrance for
1:18:26example that's a major source of
1:18:28exposure to Thad any product any
1:18:30fragrance product if fragrance is no
1:18:32perfume no lotions soap with fragrance
1:18:36right even essential oil fragrances like
1:18:38essal oil is a tricky right it's a mix
1:18:41it's a mix yeah so I I'm I'm going to
1:18:43that's guarded but but anything you know
1:18:47spray deodorants roll on deodorant
1:18:49laundry detergent yep in shamp and any
1:18:52if you can smell it it's probably
1:18:54affecting your
1:18:55hormones I'm so happy about this answer
1:18:58not because I have any steak in any
1:18:59company related to fragrance free stuff
1:19:01but I I I've a very strong sense of
1:19:03smell and I um either love or hate
1:19:06smells and I hate synthetic smells like
1:19:09going through the dutyfree especially in
1:19:11a European airport where with all the
1:19:12perfumes and I'm just I was going to
1:19:14hold my breath it it feels like I'm
1:19:17breathing poison I know um uh well well
1:19:21you are actually yeah yeah yeah in some
1:19:24sense most soaps right yeah um super
1:19:27interesting so that's your primary
1:19:29intervention is to tell them get rid of
1:19:30anything with fragrances no it's only
1:19:32one thing we get rid of so then we we
1:19:35talk about how the Plastics that they
1:19:37use to store their food food storage
1:19:39containers try to get them to get rid of
1:19:41those if they're made of plastic we try
1:19:43to get them to get rid of their um
1:19:45non-stick pans because of the posos
1:19:48chemicals that are in those and and so
1:19:50on and so forth so we go through all
1:19:52steps of their life and try to tell them
1:19:54how to make changes that will reduce
1:19:57their exposure but presumably also um
1:20:00changes like if if uh the man is obese
1:20:02for instance you might have him walking
1:20:04a bit more no you don't touch any of
1:20:06that well you see Andrew if we did that
1:20:09we would be mixing up two interventions
1:20:12we would be mixing up an obesity
1:20:13intervention I see this is a study I I'm
1:20:16sorry I thought that this group is uh is
1:20:18missioned with um helping couples get
1:20:20pregnant no no this is how this is a
1:20:22study to look at what happens if you
1:20:24make these product related changes great
1:20:27just product related changes exactly
1:20:29exactly we would love to do and probably
1:20:31will do another study separate one on
1:20:33Obesity and you know a lot of these
1:20:36chemicals just to let you know are
1:20:37obesogens they increase obesity there's
1:20:41a book out called obesogens you can read
1:20:43about them and so you know it'll be it's
1:20:46very you know there is some overlap so
1:20:48by reducing some of these chemicals that
1:20:50are in your food storage containers
1:20:52you're also reducing obesogens so it's
1:20:54not a clear you know yes no we gave them
1:20:58a box each couple I went to their house
1:21:01six couples around the United say with a
1:21:03big box and in this box are these
1:21:05alternative products and um so you know
1:21:10straws and and and bamboo spoons and you
1:21:14know $500 per box I think it was
1:21:17approximately it had to do with their
1:21:18personal you know exposure and and then
1:21:22they made these changes now
1:21:26unlike another study that you reported
1:21:30they are at the end quite happy to keep
1:21:32doing this by the way they love this
1:21:35they love doing this it was so
1:21:38gratifying to see that they felt in many
1:21:41many ways their life got better you know
1:21:43I'm not a I'm I'm pretty careful in what
1:21:46I so I I hesitate to say this because
1:21:48the data is not hard but the impression
1:21:52is that they are
1:21:55happy happier they're sleeping better
1:21:57they report more energy and so on and so
1:22:00forth uh having made these changes we
1:22:02need to follow that up with hard data
1:22:04I'm not writing that I'm not you know
1:22:06but that they but I can say and I can
1:22:09write that they felt very positive and
1:22:11are we're going to go back and see if
1:22:13they did continue we need to do that but
1:22:16at the end of the six of the 3 months
1:22:19they and hopefully in six months they
1:22:21will they are still making these changes
1:22:24in their lives did um you collect data
1:22:27on whether or not they were able to
1:22:28conceive after having made these changes
1:22:30yes we did but I actually can't talk
1:22:32about that can't talk about until the
1:22:34babies are born just kidding um um and
1:22:37and we did get their sperm count at the
1:22:38beginning and the end and and had some
1:22:41very interesting data on that which too
1:22:42early to report to too too early let me
1:22:44ask you this then and um I appreciate
1:22:47that the not wanting to share specific
1:22:50uh results until this the all the data
1:22:52are in and it's published
1:22:55um if somebody listening uh were having
1:22:58trouble conceiving um for 12 months or
1:23:02more um are the sorts of replacement
1:23:06intervention product interventions that
1:23:08you're talking about here things that
1:23:10you would um at least feel comfortable
1:23:12saying um would might be a good place to
1:23:15start or to explore absolutely
1:23:17absolutely there's no harm you know we
1:23:20we're not none of the changes are
1:23:21putting people at risk or doing anything
1:23:23that could be harmful them I'm sure of
1:23:25that very careful and some are are going
1:23:28to be cost-saving um I think that's
1:23:30where like drinking out of uh plastic
1:23:33bottles far less if at all like I um
1:23:37just for reasons related to wanting to
1:23:38reduce waste I I use a mason jar or use
1:23:41these or ceramic although you'll
1:23:43probably tell me that the lining on the
1:23:44ceramic mug might have endocrine
1:23:46disruptors no I okay great okay well
1:23:49then I'll keep drinking um but it's very
1:23:52reassuring to me that there are things
1:23:54that we can do in terms of cost-saving
1:23:56elimination or replacement of of
1:23:58consumables buying in bulk that can
1:24:00improve endocrine status maybe fertility
1:24:02buy in bulk um bring a container to the
1:24:05store and fill it up a glass jar instead
1:24:07of buying something in plastic you're
1:24:10winning on both ends because those bulk
1:24:12products are cheaper MH um one of the
1:24:14things I did with the couples was go
1:24:16shop with them and we went around and we
1:24:18looked at various products and for
1:24:20example we looked at the produce and
1:24:22there was option to buy
1:24:25freestanding Bunches of lettuce heads of
1:24:27lettuce or wrapped up in plastic Bunches
1:24:30of lettuce and I said let's compare the
1:24:32price I actually didn't know until we
1:24:34did it but the freestanding unwrapped
1:24:37lettuce was
1:24:38cheaper and I think that's you know
1:24:41because that makes sense because there's
1:24:42a work involved in wrapping it up and in
1:24:45the container and so on and so not only
1:24:48are you getting something that's more
1:24:50toxic but it's more expensive when it
1:24:53comes to reducing PA exposure and some
1:24:55of these forever chemicals um that you
1:24:57mentioned um seems like reducing uh
1:25:01fluid intake from plastic vessels is
1:25:04going to be number one the primary
1:25:07source of BPA is in the lining of cans
1:25:09so any drink or soup or anything that
1:25:14comes in a can is going to be um any can
1:25:19all can any can unless it's a high-end
1:25:24you know Elite company that's made the
1:25:27change from BPA to an alternative lining
1:25:29and they'll say that so and by the way
1:25:32BPA has some bad relatives um such as
1:25:37BPS and BPF and and maybe you're be
1:25:40interested in this story so when it came
1:25:42out that BPA was um estrogenic which is
1:25:45what it is um and by the way it's kind
1:25:48of the evil twin of phalates because
1:25:51phalates are anti-androgenic and B is
1:25:54estrogenic and phalates make plastic
1:25:56soft and BPA makes plastic hard you
1:26:00don't want either okay so when this came
1:26:03out that this was a bad thing um the
1:26:06manufacturer started selling things that
1:26:09say BPA free I'm sure you've seen that
1:26:12the trick is that instead of BPA they
1:26:15use BPS sneaky rat and
1:26:18BPF and these are chemicals these are
1:26:20lookalikes they're analoges and they're
1:26:22just as harmful sneaky sneaky sneaky so
1:26:26I'm not a conspiracy theorist but it's
1:26:28just so dirty it's so dirty it's like
1:26:31it's um you know right now is a really
1:26:33important time to be having this
1:26:35discussion because there's been a lot of
1:26:37movement on Capitol Hill and there's
1:26:38been a lot of movement on social media
1:26:40about trying to call attention to
1:26:42metabolic syndromes and highly processed
1:26:44foods and and issues like this and it's
1:26:46become unfortunately politicized I
1:26:49mean I hear this stuff and I just think
1:26:51to myself the only good faith um that we
1:26:54can really trust is our own desire to be
1:26:59healthier and um to have our families
1:27:01and friends be healthier and to try and
1:27:04consume and not consume things on the
1:27:05basis of that that my belief is that we
1:27:08can't trust any any larger agency to
1:27:11either protect or harm us it's like it's
1:27:14not it's it's like they're going to do
1:27:16what they're going to do we just have to
1:27:17be informed as opposed to trying to like
1:27:20dismantle the systems that led to this
1:27:22which just seems like infinitely
1:27:23complicated
1:27:24um maybe you can do that but I'm far
1:27:26less optimistic and now that I'm 49
1:27:28years old I can say things like now that
1:27:30I'm 49 I feel like um but what you're
1:27:33saying is really important if I look at
1:27:34a can it says BPA free doesn't mean
1:27:37anything it could have bps's or other uh
1:27:40endocrine disruptors right so drinking
1:27:43out of glass vessels um drinking out of
1:27:46um ceramic vessels um metal metal but
1:27:50not cans not metal cans not aluminum
1:27:52cans right not cans no good but okay you
1:27:55know you can get a a metal water bottle
1:27:58that's not lined with BPA steel steel
1:28:01yeah steel yeah and um is it true that
1:28:04microwave safe means it just means that
1:28:07the plastic won't melt in the microwave
1:28:08but it's do never never put plastic in a
1:28:13microwave so here's the story The BPA
1:28:18phids plasticizers are added to the
1:28:22plastic but they're not chemically bound
1:28:24to it okay so if you put anything in a
1:28:29container that has these chemical in it
1:28:33they will and then put it in a hot
1:28:36environment they will come out of the
1:28:39plastic and go into the
1:28:41food so if you in a microwave or you put
1:28:44your bottle in the car and the Sun comes
1:28:47in it warms up the bottle and then the
1:28:50stuff goes into your water you don't
1:28:52want to mix these chemical and your food
1:28:54but if you do the worst thing is to do
1:28:57it in a heated environment I think about
1:28:59all the the food that was consumed in
1:29:01college in the in the 90s and 2000s like
1:29:04uh the cup of noodles with the styrofoam
1:29:07the um you know things in packaging
1:29:10stuff like that is pretty
1:29:12straightforward to eliminate once one
1:29:14understands and decides then we start
1:29:16getting into the more nuanced thing of
1:29:19like okay you can buy a really nice
1:29:21tasting anyway grass-fed grass finish
1:29:24steak but it's wrapped in
1:29:26plastic well or you can go to the
1:29:28butcher but most people don't have time
1:29:30to go to the butcher or you can get um
1:29:33strawberries at the farmers market
1:29:34blueberries at the farmers market which
1:29:36is what I try to do but sometimes I buy
1:29:38strawberries at the market and they have
1:29:40those plastic flip top things and of
1:29:41course I recycle the plastic how bad is
1:29:43it if you know you rinse the
1:29:46strawberries off with good clean water
1:29:49that were in the plastic container are
1:29:51you we have to do that experiment I
1:29:53don't know yeah
1:29:54so I guess so it sounds to me like um
1:29:57not drinking out of cans not drinking
1:29:58out of plastic bottles it's going to be
1:30:01not microwaving plastic ever and in
1:30:03general just avoiding avoiding plastic
1:30:06intake if you can afford it buy organic
1:30:10so you're going to avoid the pesticides
1:30:12and then phalates are actually added to
1:30:15pesticides and they're added because
1:30:17they increase absorption so you know the
1:30:19you want your pesticides to get into the
1:30:21plant right and to kill the bad stuff
1:30:24and and insects and and um so the same
1:30:30property of phalates that makes them
1:30:33good for pesticides also makes them good
1:30:35for our hand cream just mentioning
1:30:38absorption absorption anything that's
1:30:39absorbed in the body is going to have
1:30:41phades in it and it also holds scent and
1:30:46color so it's added to those scents and
1:30:49it's also added to your lipstick and to
1:30:51your colored you know whatever you put
1:30:53on face and so on anything that holds
1:30:56scent and color that's going to be
1:30:58th um sorry I've been accused on line
1:31:02and uh of being a sunscreen truther I'm
1:31:05not a sunscreen truther I'm going to
1:31:06keep repeating this as many times as I
1:31:08can I I understand that UV damage to the
1:31:13skin can cause certain cancers I get
1:31:15that um I agree with that um the data
1:31:20are pretty clear to me based on having
1:31:22researched this pretty extensively and
1:31:23talked to many many people including
1:31:24Derm oncologists that mineral-based
1:31:26sunscreens like zinc oxide and titanium
1:31:29dioxide but certainly zinc oxide are
1:31:32safer than the chemical sunscreens a lot
1:31:34of people get upset when I say that and
1:31:36they say well in Europe there's tons of
1:31:37evidence that the chemical based
1:31:38sunscreens are safe okay fine you use
1:31:40them I'm not going to the point being
1:31:43that UV damage is
1:31:46bad there are ways to prect protect
1:31:48ourselves from the Sun including
1:31:52physical barriers like clothing hats
1:31:55Etc um but pretty much all sunscreen
1:31:59that I'm aware of is designed to be
1:32:01absorbed so what do we do if we want to
1:32:03get some UV protection from whatever
1:32:06kind of sunscreen we deem safe for
1:32:07ourselves but we want to avoid these
1:32:09exposures to these other things what
1:32:11what do we do do we have to hunt really
1:32:13carefully for the right
1:32:15sunscreen uh yeah I I think that's a
1:32:18good idea um are you familiar with
1:32:20environmental working group uh is
1:32:22another one out of the Bay Area no oh
1:32:24okay I don't know actually where they
1:32:26are they're pretty big sounds sounds
1:32:27familiar but I'm not I can't say I'm
1:32:29familiar with they have Consumer Guides
1:32:31and in those consumer so environmental
1:32:33working group I'm not part of them I'm
1:32:36you know but I like their work and in
1:32:39these Consumer Guides you can put in the
1:32:41product and they have categories you can
1:32:42put sunscreen if we had time we could do
1:32:45it right now but and then you can put
1:32:46the name of your sunscreen and it'll
1:32:48give you a number and then if the number
1:32:50is less than 10 it'll tell you why are
1:32:53they in independent of any like funding
1:32:56of that question will probably come up
1:32:58for you too um uh people will say where
1:33:03did she get her funding you know people
1:33:05people get very suspicious about this I
1:33:06can tell you yeah that would be great
1:33:08yeah so I uh am a a tenure professor at
1:33:13Mount Si get some salary there because
1:33:15I'm only part-time and I have a funer
1:33:18one funer who funds found funded my um
1:33:22sperm decline uh second sperm decline
1:33:26analysis and the publicity of my book so
1:33:28he's a he's a it's a foundation I won't
1:33:30says philanthropy yes philanthropy yeah
1:33:33and it's actually not a lot of money so
1:33:34no And so there's no reason to think
1:33:36that anything that you're telling us is
1:33:38um linked to like the food industry or
1:33:40an alternative product or anything I'm
1:33:43very very careful not to endorse any
1:33:44product because I don't want that
1:33:47complication yeah thanks for clarifying
1:33:49that I wasn't I wasn't suspicious but um
1:33:52but I think nowadays people have just
1:33:54been taught to you know appropriately so
1:33:56they've been taught to say well wait
1:33:57where does this funding come from
1:33:58because a lot of the studies about the
1:34:00that led to the F food pyramid for
1:34:02instance people were under the
1:34:04impression that somehow that was biased
1:34:06by by companies that were funding the
1:34:08work and I don't know I haven't done the
1:34:10forensics on that I don't have the time
1:34:11or the energy um all I know is that um
1:34:15when it comes to what people eat what it
1:34:18comes when it comes to what people put
1:34:21on their body it becomes a very personal
1:34:23thing and it's woven in with a lot of um
1:34:27psychological and emotional issues yeah
1:34:29yeah okay
1:34:32um what are a few things that you
1:34:37do Andor
1:34:39avoid in light of what you know about
1:34:42these endocrine disruptors and by the
1:34:44way it goes without saying that you're
1:34:46in spectacular cognitive and physical
1:34:49shape uh for any age but it's it's
1:34:51really remarkable I I feel comtable
1:34:53sharing this because someone else
1:34:54published it online recently you are
1:34:56soon to enjoy your what birthday 89th
1:35:0089th birthday amazing and um with all
1:35:03the talk about longevity cognitive and
1:35:05physical longevity everyone's thinking
1:35:06including me like what does she do well
1:35:08she avoids all these endocrine
1:35:10disruptors um and she has a wonderfully
1:35:12rich life of curiosity and other things
1:35:15um but yeah what are some other things
1:35:17that you do uh and and avoid in light of
1:35:20what you know for which there may or may
1:35:22not be a control old study but I think
1:35:24we're all just curious we'll frame this
1:35:26as what you do so water our water I
1:35:31worry about the water I studied water
1:35:33for a long time in my past life so we
1:35:37actually distill our water so we have a
1:35:39tabletop
1:35:41distiller um my husband Steven cleans it
1:35:43out there's a lot of gunk in it by the
1:35:45way even though it's San Francisco that
1:35:47has clean water at the end of the day
1:35:49after you've distilled the water there's
1:35:50a lot of gun so you distill the water so
1:35:52this is not reverse osmosis distilling
1:35:55okay yeah so it's steamed distilled and
1:35:58then it condenses in a glass container
1:36:00and then we put that in glass containers
1:36:02in the fridge and so and it tastes
1:36:04really good by the way really really
1:36:07somebody was just over and and he said
1:36:09this tastes like melted snow I thought
1:36:12it was lovely and you use that for
1:36:13drinking for coffee for tea for cooking
1:36:15too if you make rice you're using
1:36:17distill actually no no but for ice cubes
1:36:20and you know whenever I can think about
1:36:21it we can't use too much cuz you be too
1:36:25busy always but he does it once a day
1:36:28that it's just the two of us so water is
1:36:30important um we try to leave our shoes
1:36:34at the door tell me about that one well
1:36:37dust that you bring in um contains a lot
1:36:40of the particularly the posos chemicals
1:36:43and uh so that's actually um I'm not
1:36:47100% good on that but we try try to do
1:36:50that um and I'm careful with the
1:36:54products I put on my face I check them
1:36:56out the way I suggested you know
1:36:58environmental working group um and I go
1:37:01to the farmers market I always buy
1:37:03organic always buy organic um but I know
1:37:06that's a cost issue for some people um
1:37:10and an availability issue for some
1:37:12people but I in San Francisco you can do
1:37:14that
1:37:15um some areas where I don't do more of
1:37:20what I should I think I'm starting to be
1:37:22aware of the
1:37:24um chemicals and clothing we haven't
1:37:26talked about that but um there's a turns
1:37:29out there's a lot of particularly in
1:37:31it's a problem for workout wear because
1:37:33you're absorbing so much you're sweaty
1:37:35you're hot and you're bringing these
1:37:37chemicals into your body and that may be
1:37:38one of the interventions that we do uh
1:37:41get a bunch of athletes to use
1:37:43um safe clothing and and traditional
1:37:47clothing and see what their body burden
1:37:49is that's how you know so um airing
1:37:52toward cotton as AO as opposed to
1:37:55synthetic material right right and the
1:37:57dyes are important so you you don't want
1:37:59you want maybe plant-based dyes it's not
1:38:02my area of expertise I have a colleague
1:38:04who I work with on this and I'll go with
1:38:06her advice but but um I'm just saying
1:38:09that's another area that I think people
1:38:11will soon be paying attention to um
1:38:14there's also the area that is much more
1:38:17difficult which is what's in building
1:38:19materials and Furniture but um a lot of
1:38:22these posos and the tens are in our
1:38:24furniture and in our building materials
1:38:27and trying to think about how to build I
1:38:30was asked about safety in a new Village
1:38:32that's being built in California by the
1:38:34way and um it's really challenging to
1:38:37think about if you were going to do this
1:38:39right and you were going to build a town
1:38:42that was toxic free how would you do
1:38:45that I'm thinking about that I'm
1:38:48thinking about the opener of The
1:38:50Simpsons and doing the exact opposite
1:38:52where like in the opener of the The
1:38:53Simpsons there's like a three-eyed fish
1:38:55and there's the the chemical plant and
1:38:56I'm just thinking you just look at the
1:38:57opener of The Simpsons you do the
1:38:59inverse of everything that's
1:39:01there the inverse of everything that's
1:39:03there including alcohol intake um uh you
1:39:07know which is um robust on The Simpsons
1:39:10um yeah right but it interesting so and
1:39:13when it comes
1:39:14to food sourcing like of but non-fruit
1:39:18non-vegetable food sourcing is there
1:39:20anything we can do I mean it's so hard
1:39:22for people to get eggs from farms I mean
1:39:24you can if you go to a farmers's market
1:39:26but this stuff can get pretty tricky
1:39:28pretty expensive and most people
1:39:30listening are not not going to be you
1:39:32know living in somoma where they might
1:39:34have a a neighbor that has chickens or
1:39:36something yeah um it's it's it's a hard
1:39:39problem it is a hard problem and and I
1:39:42think maybe people asking for it more
1:39:46would help I don't know I mean in San
1:39:48Francisco I'm lucky because I can just
1:39:51get you know just on the phone
1:39:54fresh direct order the and I know it's
1:39:56okay um but um I know that's not the
1:39:59case everywhere so um I think being
1:40:03aware honestly is a really big step if
1:40:06you're aware that this is something you
1:40:08want to change you will find ways to
1:40:11change it it's interesting because a few
1:40:13years back there was a lot of discussion
1:40:15about dyes in uh children's toys in
1:40:19particular toys um from overseas right
1:40:22remember kids are not you know babies
1:40:23are always gnawing on stuff and teeing
1:40:25and and and there was a lot of attention
1:40:27like hey like what's in these sippy cups
1:40:28and my understanding is uh toys and
1:40:30sippy cups and my understanding is that
1:40:32bpas were banned from sippy cups thit
1:40:35excuse me based on my work based on your
1:40:37work thank you so much thank you for the
1:40:39clarification truly and and for and for
1:40:41the work that led to that um we we have
1:40:44this um innate thankfully uh innate
1:40:48reflex to protect our young as does
1:40:50every most every species um thank
1:40:54goodness and we know that baby skin is
1:40:58more absorbent than older skin we know
1:41:00and so there there are literally laws in
1:41:02place and restrictions in place to make
1:41:03sure that some this stuff is minimized
1:41:06in young kids but then we sort of after
1:41:08age 12 we're kind of like okay well it's
1:41:10a free-for-all it depends on your budget
1:41:11where you go and so we we can't rely on
1:41:13governing bodies to to do this um but I
1:41:17think it's a useful conversation
1:41:18especially given your relationship to um
1:41:21Scandinavia which is a fun one to
1:41:22elaborate on to
1:41:25illustrate some of the discrepancy
1:41:27between the US and
1:41:31Europe what sorts of chemicals are
1:41:34banned in Europe in food in lotion Etc
1:41:40that you're aware of that are prominent
1:41:43here in the US maybe that's a good
1:41:45filter to to place some of this Choice
1:41:47making through Europe has a has had a
1:41:51policy called reach and under
1:41:54reach you have to show that a chemical
1:41:57is safe before it's put into the
1:41:59marketplace not so what the way our
1:42:02system is here is put in the marketplace
1:42:06and then if somebody gets worried about
1:42:08it they might do a study they might find
1:42:11harm remember how long it took me to
1:42:14find that thide connection it was 10
1:42:16years two studies 10 years $10 million
1:42:19by the way so if you're going to wait
1:42:21for that I don't know what you know
1:42:24given the number of chemicals out there
1:42:2680,000 or more um forget it you know so
1:42:30so I think the reach policy of testing
1:42:33before something's put in the market is
1:42:35making a big difference in Europe and
1:42:37that's I think that's one reason why
1:42:39they're much better off are those are
1:42:41those animal tests um or animal and
1:42:44human tests that they're doing over
1:42:45there whatever defin safety it depends
1:42:47on the chemical it depends on you know
1:42:50what the product is I I can't answer
1:42:51that in general but so that be a good
1:42:53Avenue for changing legislature here
1:42:56right to to install something similar to
1:42:58reach absolutely but it's not going to
1:43:01happen I don't think no no because
1:43:03there's too many forces against that
1:43:06it's very very hard for manufacturers to
1:43:08make changes I I'll give you one
1:43:11example um so you know that you might
1:43:15not know but should know that thids are
1:43:17very prevalent in the hospital setting
1:43:20there're if you think of a tube you know
1:43:22to to dialysis to chemotherapy to IV
1:43:26that's all PL that's all phids right and
1:43:28that's going into your body and there
1:43:31was a recently um a bill passed in
1:43:34California that DP could not be in IV
1:43:36bags it's
1:43:38fantastic success in the actual bag yes
1:43:42the bags could not contain these
1:43:43endocrine disruptors yes DP specifically
1:43:46dehp diyl hexalite the most
1:43:49anti-androgenic Thal so so that was a
1:43:52great step for for but that's like one
1:43:54chemical
1:43:56right in one product and that was a
1:43:59battle so you see how hard it is to do
1:44:04this extremely hard there's a company
1:44:07bbrw which makes Hospital products and
1:44:10they are very forward-thinking and they
1:44:13set up a a factory in Florida to make
1:44:17alternative IV bags out of another
1:44:20product um poly oan and and the problem
1:44:25is that we're not sure about the safety
1:44:27of polyphant so it's a it gets really
1:44:30difficult you know you can say remove
1:44:32dhp but now we scientists have to say
1:44:36what does it mean for a chemical to be
1:44:38safe and we don't know that I don't mean
1:44:42to dissolution you and your your listen
1:44:45you know that's a that's a huge
1:44:46challenge that we're up against we know
1:44:48it's safer we know it's safer and we
1:44:51know what the Bad actors are and we know
1:44:53things we don't want to be exposed to
1:44:55but we have to be careful when we think
1:44:57about what do we want to put in
1:45:00instead is that yeah yeah I I'm thinking
1:45:03about this a former um president of
1:45:06Stamford who was also happen to be a
1:45:08family friend years ago um he since
1:45:11passed Don Kennedy when he retired as
1:45:15president Stanford went in my
1:45:17understanding is that he went and
1:45:18directed the FDA and I was just thinking
1:45:20to myself like um when did thisen happen
1:45:24um because I know he was super into
1:45:26Health he was like an avid Runner he was
1:45:29very fit well into his 70s yeah hit
1:45:31replacement kept running or maybe it was
1:45:32knee replacement I don't know the guy
1:45:33was obsessed with health and so I don't
1:45:35think that um there's there's a lack of
1:45:39interest in health at the level of
1:45:41things like the FDA and um but there's
1:45:45clearly a problem and I'm just trying to
1:45:48think of solutions and it seems to all
1:45:51boil down to
1:45:53what we can take control of in our home
1:45:56like when we go to a restaurant it's
1:45:57challenging to know like what they're
1:45:59doing in the kitchen and and and at some
1:46:01point it becomes neurotic to you know
1:46:04although I know people that won't go to
1:46:05restaurants where they use seed oils
1:46:06there's this whole new thing cropping up
1:46:08about avoiding seed oils um but maybe uh
1:46:11they they're more significant issues who
1:46:13knows um the seed oil crowd is pretty
1:46:15pretty intense um and I like olive oil
1:46:18anyway so I air to that but I think if
1:46:22people are interested Ed in limiting
1:46:23their exposure to these endocrine
1:46:24disruptors one of the key questions
1:46:26that's going to come up again and again
1:46:27especially in light of PCOS and sperm
1:46:29counts
1:46:30is we can't control what happened to us
1:46:33during pregnancy right but once we have
1:46:36some sense of agency over what we put
1:46:38into our body and how we put it into our
1:46:41body do you think that there's
1:46:44a that there's um plasticity and
1:46:47resilience to this system so you know
1:46:50God forbid if somebody was exposed to a
1:46:51lot of these things early on can they
1:46:53you know by making changes can they can
1:46:56they rescue themselves to any degree no
1:46:59so it's really just dependent on what
1:47:00your parents did yes that's not to say
1:47:04that your own exposure cannot change
1:47:06things further and make things worse but
1:47:08here here's a here's a fact if a male's
1:47:11mother smokes when he's in the womb then
1:47:16he has a this is a Danish study by the
1:47:19way 50% reduction in sperm count if his
1:47:22mother smoke while he was in the womb
1:47:23how much smoking are we talking I don't
1:47:25know I don't remember but the the the
1:47:28reason I bring this up is because
1:47:30there's nothing he can do to change
1:47:32that okay if he smokes as an adult he
1:47:36has I think a similar reduction the
1:47:39sperm count he can stop and his sperm
1:47:41will be res restored he can get a sperm
1:47:44Health back but whatever happened in the
1:47:46womb stays in the womb if you will it's
1:47:49developmental it's not going to you know
1:47:52it's going to be be there for life and
1:47:54that's true of the brain as well so um I
1:47:57think anybody who's thinking of
1:47:59conceiving a
1:48:01pregnancy or
1:48:03pregnant has a responsibility to really
1:48:06learn how to reduce their exposure
1:48:09because these things are by the way
1:48:10passed on for several Generations it's
1:48:13your child and your child's child
1:48:15because this germ cells for your
1:48:18grandchild are going to be carried in
1:48:20within your child so germ cell are um
1:48:24not germs as in infectious germs it's
1:48:26the cells that will produce the egg and
1:48:28sperm that germinate hence hence the
1:48:31word germ right so it's a huge
1:48:33responsibility and I think people should
1:48:35take it very seriously um that they have
1:48:39you know they're going to be affecting
1:48:42the health of subsequent gener some Labs
1:48:44say it's seven generations I don't know
1:48:46if that's true but certainly three
1:48:48generations um are affected and um so I
1:48:52should mention my book can I mention
1:48:54please I'll mention yeah I believe I
1:48:56mentioned it in my introduction but yeah
1:48:58please so in in uh countdown uh two
1:49:01words by the way because if you say
1:49:03countdown one word you won't find it but
1:49:06countdown um we have two chapters on
1:49:08things you can do you very practical
1:49:11things you can do and also websites you
1:49:12can go to and links you can go to now
1:49:14this came out in um a while ago so 21 so
1:49:19there are many more things now but I
1:49:21think it's a good start how lonely are
1:49:24you in this expedition of identifying
1:49:28endocrine disruptors in food in
1:49:31pesticides in um in the sorts of things
1:49:34you're talking about like is there a
1:49:36whole field of this of of excellent
1:49:38people are you are you a small team of
1:49:40of of people that are against the grain
1:49:44I I mean I confess I don't know many
1:49:46people doing the sorts of work that
1:49:47you're doing but I you know you're the
1:49:49the most public facing and prominent and
1:49:51um I I
1:49:53my question is like is the NIH funding a
1:49:56lot of this sort of thing absolutely
1:49:58it's we're an army and it's not and it's
1:50:01International and there is now um a
1:50:04global um Plastics treaty under
1:50:07negotiation by the way tell us about the
1:50:09Plastics treaty people are trying
1:50:13to create get ped by various countries
1:50:18um an international Plastics treaty I
1:50:20can't I don't want to talk a lot about
1:50:22it I'm not involved in that process but
1:50:24in the process you they you could see if
1:50:27you looked into
1:50:29there hundreds of scientists and
1:50:32concerned citizens and activists and you
1:50:35know people in legislation who are
1:50:38working to specifically on the chemicals
1:50:41and plastic now plastic is really a bad
1:50:44actor I I but it is not the only bad
1:50:48actor so I want to just mention that
1:50:50plastic is really important but you know
1:50:53pesticides are not plastic and and and
1:50:55so on so there are many other classes
1:50:57that you have to worry about but
1:50:58certainly controlling our exposure to
1:51:01plastic is huge and um though you asked
1:51:05about scientists in this area yes
1:51:08there's huge amount of science going on
1:51:10for this in this there's um and it's
1:51:13funded by NIH and it's funded by um the
1:51:16EU and um primarily I think those are
1:51:20the two two funders of Scandinavia has
1:51:22funding within you know in Scandinavian
1:51:26countries so there's a lot of work and a
1:51:28lot of very good people working really
1:51:30hard but it's a huge problem and it's
1:51:32been here
1:51:35since well plastic started to rise in
1:51:38popularity in 1950 so we have like 75
1:51:41years to battle against and it's not
1:51:44going down anytime
1:51:45soon lifespan is increasing pretty
1:51:49significantly presumably in large part
1:51:51because of the red ction and
1:51:53smoking um and control of Infectious
1:51:56Disease and Control of infectious
1:51:57diseases um but lifespan is definitely
1:52:01increasing um whereas the use of
1:52:04plastics has clearly increased um and so
1:52:09uh I guess one could argue that we're
1:52:11living longer but we are less robust
1:52:14than we were less um reproductively
1:52:18competent is that uh the people that are
1:52:20reflected in that longer lifespan were
1:52:23not necessarily exposed early in life
1:52:26which is when it's most critical so you
1:52:29know I was born in 1936 there was no
1:52:31plastic then there was no you know um
1:52:35and there were other things of course
1:52:37but it not as they are today so um I
1:52:41don't think that you can make the
1:52:44inference that because we're living
1:52:46longer plastic growth you know the
1:52:48growth of the Plastics industry is
1:52:49somehow driving that longevity
1:52:51absolutely not absolutely not I think
1:52:53what it's driving is decrease in
1:52:55fertility and what's happening is that
1:52:58the shift in populations is pretty
1:53:00dramatic we're getting you know the
1:53:02pyramid used to be like this I'm I'm
1:53:05making a triangle with my arms showing
1:53:08very few people on top and a lot of
1:53:09people on the bottom but what's
1:53:11happening is that that's getting
1:53:12inverted so we're getting more and more
1:53:14people on top and fewer and fewer people
1:53:16on the bottom birth rates are way down
1:53:19birth rats are way down and and so this
1:53:21is a
1:53:23an enormous problem for societies
1:53:25because the people in that small support
1:53:27group at the bottom can't drive the
1:53:31society to support the L the
1:53:34large growth on top you see what saying
1:53:37is this true in other countries as well
1:53:38yes absolutely absolutely it's all over
1:53:40the world and and the decline in
1:53:44fertility in my mind is probably well
1:53:47one of the biggest challenges we're
1:53:50facing now because um it's everywhere
1:53:53it's very acute and there's only limited
1:53:57things we can do to to to counter it um
1:54:01there's a wonderful website called it's
1:54:05by the World Bank put out by the World
1:54:06Bank it's called fertility data and if
1:54:10you go in there you can see what is the
1:54:12fertility rate every year but you can
1:54:14put in you know plug in a country or a
1:54:18year or you and see what the f fertility
1:54:20rate in each country in the world each
1:54:22year and you can see that and what you
1:54:24see is that um a
1:54:26decline about the same rate as sperm
1:54:29decline by the way about 50% in 50 years
1:54:33and um the critical point for fertility
1:54:38is two so what's that mean that's called
1:54:41replacement and that's two people
1:54:43replace themselves with a total
1:54:45fertility rate of two actually 2.1
1:54:47because you have a little bit of loss
1:54:49but 2.1 you're good to go Society when
1:54:52you fall below that you're
1:54:54shrinking and there are many countries
1:54:56in the world that are below that
1:54:59including the United States and for
1:55:01example the worst I've seen is actually
1:55:04South Korea which is at
1:55:080.78 wow Japan is at one wow so large
1:55:13parts of the world are just not
1:55:15replacing themselves and why that is is
1:55:19maybe another discussion but or we can
1:55:21talk about it I don't know if you want
1:55:22to go go into that but um it's not just
1:55:24sperm count for sure yeah along those
1:55:26lines let's talk about egg count and
1:55:29quality uh you mentioned the PCOS
1:55:31results earlier um before we were on
1:55:34Mike uh you mentioned an interesting
1:55:36study that you did about the use of
1:55:39electric blankets um and assessing
1:55:42whether or not the use of electric
1:55:43blankets had impacted um egg number or
1:55:45quality in women and the answer was it
1:55:49actually what we looked at in women I'm
1:55:51sorry to correct you but was their the
1:55:53outcome of their pregnancy their
1:55:55fertility and and what if they got
1:55:57pregnant how how did that turn out
1:55:58excuse me so thank you for that
1:56:00clarification but but um I'm sure there'
1:56:03be a lot of other studies that have
1:56:04looked at that you know I I just have
1:56:05been away from that field for a long
1:56:07time but so far I don't see convincing
1:56:10evidence that the use of cell phones or
1:56:14um you know other exposures to
1:56:17electromagnetic radiation are affecting
1:56:19our pregnancies and our fertility that's
1:56:21not to say it's not happening
1:56:23but I have not looked at it and I don't
1:56:26like to make statements about things I
1:56:28haven't looked at my understanding of
1:56:30the cell phone data uh for sperm uh
1:56:33count and motility AKA quality um is I
1:56:38discussed amended analysis uh covering
1:56:40this on the podcast previously is that
1:56:42there are some heat effects of cell
1:56:45phone use and keeping the phone in the
1:56:46pocket that may that may I want to be
1:56:49careful here impact um sperm count and
1:56:52and motility uh quality but um Direct
1:56:56effects of of emfs on sperm there's no
1:57:00evidence that it is disrupting sperm at
1:57:02least to my knowledge I honestly I have
1:57:04to say just going to say I don't know
1:57:06but I do know that um heat is related to
1:57:10fertility and sperm count right and um
1:57:14you can look at the birth rates as a
1:57:17function of the month of conception and
1:57:19you can see that for example in war
1:57:21months in war climates uh there's less
1:57:24yeah so there he he does play a role but
1:57:27how much that's tied to cell phone use I
1:57:30I think that's something that's now
1:57:32under investigation by a lot of groups
1:57:34and um we'll see what they find yeah the
1:57:36data on sitting more than a few hours a
1:57:38day on um having legs that are very
1:57:41large as a consequence of obesity or
1:57:43even just legs that are large uh heating
1:57:45the the scrotom and th those data are
1:57:48fairly um I would say solid in terms of
1:57:51the relationship to reducing sperm count
1:57:53um heat is not good for sperm which is
1:57:56why the scrotum has its um the features
1:57:58that it does to move the the testicles
1:58:01further or um closer to the body um
1:58:04getting back to egg um egg count and
1:58:06quality there's some evidence that um
1:58:09girls are entering puberty earlier um
1:58:12but that uh women are also undergoing
1:58:14perimenopause menopause earlier earlier
1:58:17um do we do we know what that is the
1:58:19consequence of there are several new
1:58:22papers actually on the menopausal age
1:58:25showing relation to a number of
1:58:27chemicals but I can't quote them to you
1:58:29right now I don't remember which class
1:58:32it was that they looked at but um I
1:58:35think that's right I think there is
1:58:36growing evidence that earlier you know
1:58:40fewer it's also called premature ovarian
1:58:43failure um so that women are just not
1:58:48producing the eggs as long as they used
1:58:50to yeah but um
1:58:52[Music]
1:58:53um the I just want to say something
1:58:56about the fertility can we go back to
1:58:58fertility please um
1:59:00so when this comes up and there I'm sure
1:59:03you've seen the literature there's a lot
1:59:04of literature on this that say fertility
1:59:08is going down you know fewer children
1:59:10are being born a people say well that's
1:59:13a good thing because it's less of a load
1:59:15on the planet which is an another
1:59:16discussion and then they say well this
1:59:19is due to choice that people are
1:59:22choosing to have fewer children and
1:59:24they're choosing to um delay
1:59:27childbearing till they're no longer as
1:59:29fertile uh they're using more
1:59:31contraception women are more educated
1:59:34they're entering the workforce all of
1:59:36these social factors are given as the
1:59:40reason for decline in fertility and um I
1:59:45just need to point out whenever I hear
1:59:48this that it's not just human fertility
1:59:52that's
1:59:53declining um the number of species that
1:59:56are becoming extinct is increasing
1:59:59rapidly and there is there have been
2:00:03for at least 40 years evidence that
2:00:06those pesticides that affect us are
2:00:08affecting animals as well and um so the
2:00:12decline in fertility in non-human
2:00:14species cannot be attributed to delayed
2:00:18childbearing or use of contraception
2:00:22right right and it's interesting because
2:00:25um we hear we usually hear first about
2:00:28species that are about to go extinct
2:00:29that are badly endangered I don't know
2:00:31what the proper language is but is about
2:00:33to go distinct um like the Florida
2:00:36panther right or you know we we hear
2:00:38that you know there the species of like
2:00:40there's a very small subset of them left
2:00:42uh the blackf footed ferrets in Montana
2:00:45I think one feret his name is um
2:00:47Scarface SED something like 300 lit that
2:00:50then led to the EV they started out
2:00:52outbreeding because if you do too much
2:00:54inbreeding obviously it's not good and
2:00:56but then they were able to at least
2:00:57partially recover maybe fully recover
2:00:59the those populations and people forget
2:01:02the the domino effect of these
2:01:04ecosystems when one species is
2:01:06compromised like when the black-footed
2:01:08ferrets I know it might sound kind of
2:01:09silly but um were compromised in terms
2:01:13of their populations the prairie dog
2:01:14population went up the grasses were
2:01:17getting eaten far more and then there's
2:01:18all these Downstream consequences you on
2:01:21bugs and you know and I'm not an expert
2:01:23in this but one doesn't have to be an
2:01:24expert to understand like you you move
2:01:27one pin here and and the whole web moves
2:01:30and um and so or you move one node and
2:01:33the and the whole web uh reconfigures
2:01:36and um and that's what Nature has been
2:01:38doing for millions of years right but um
2:01:42at some point it is conceivable no pun
2:01:45intended that we are going to be the
2:01:48species on the endangered species list
2:01:50right I mean that's that's not like a an
2:01:52outrageous sci-fi movie like right like
2:01:55at some point humans might be added to
2:01:56the endangered species with the
2:01:57exception that we have we're very clever
2:02:00and so we found a lot of ways to do
2:02:04medically assisted you know conception
2:02:07right ixie the the the literally you
2:02:10Gentle grabbing of one sperm and forcing
2:02:12it to con to uh to um fertilize the egg
2:02:17um is something we've covered on this
2:02:18podcast in our fertility episode with
2:02:21Natalie Crawford in a Solo episode that
2:02:22I did um there are questions that people
2:02:25have reasonable questions about whether
2:02:27or not the um The Offspring of those
2:02:30types of scenarios are the same as the
2:02:32right the the genetic um probability
2:02:36experiment as you mentioned before of
2:02:38having you know 200 million sperm and
2:02:40then letting Nature Select the one that
2:02:42is most um robust in that environment
2:02:45yeah and and you know the number of
2:02:48Technologies is increasing we're very
2:02:50clever species
2:02:52and and um for example I don't know if
2:02:54you've heard of gam
2:02:56Genesis so it is now possible to create
2:03:01um an embryo from a a sperm cell from a
2:03:05skin cell skin cell can produce um uh a
2:03:10sperm cell and an egg cell and you give
2:03:12it the right transcription factors and
2:03:14you can you can um so this is kind of
2:03:16interesting exciting and scary right
2:03:18this is like the the um what is it I
2:03:20think the vulture vultures the females
2:03:23uh there's some way in which two female
2:03:25vultures or maybe a single female
2:03:27vulture can um create Offspring in the
2:03:30absence of a male there's also a
2:03:32three-party IVF I don't know if you're
2:03:34aware of this where this was um
2:03:36developed where there's a mitochondrial
2:03:38disease you can take the uh two eggs one
2:03:41from the intended mother you take the
2:03:44nucleus so you get the DNA you put it
2:03:46into an egg of somebody that um where
2:03:49the DNA has been removed but where the
2:03:51spindles which are rich with
2:03:53mitochondria are from a typically a much
2:03:55younger host and then he use a sperm so
2:03:58it's actually three parents it's the
2:04:00spindle of one mom the DNA of another
2:04:02mom and a sperm they do this in the UK
2:04:04for mitochondrial disease it's still
2:04:06illegal in the United States as far as I
2:04:08understand and it's done in other
2:04:09countries um and in theory legal issues
2:04:13must be yeah but and but in theory this
2:04:16would allow women of any age provided
2:04:18they can they still have eggs
2:04:22um to have their DNA propagated forward
2:04:25because they could the DNA can be put
2:04:27into a younger egg that is um has the
2:04:30spindle quality that allows for um you
2:04:33know the production of more cells I mean
2:04:35this is this Canon has been done in
2:04:37humans yeah yeah so we're I mean you and
2:04:42I won't think of all the things that
2:04:43will be developed you know in the next
2:04:4510 20 years to CH you know to meet the
2:04:49challenge of declining fertility by
2:04:52ordinary conception I mean I think
2:04:54that's that's how we're going to solve
2:04:56this problem for us we're going to just
2:04:57be smarter and smarter about how to do a
2:05:00medically assisted um conception and and
2:05:05and then the question is going to be and
2:05:09it'll take time to know this is whether
2:05:12there are effects in The Offspring
2:05:15adverse effects in The
2:05:17Offspring um it's it's a little tricky
2:05:20because for example if you use the sperm
2:05:22of an infertile couple and you see let's
2:05:25say say the sun is is subfertile that's
2:05:27born that way um but you do it you know
2:05:30in a test tube or whatever and then you
2:05:32can say well maybe um that's because the
2:05:36father was infertile and he's got
2:05:38inheritance from his father from that
2:05:40you know you know what I'm saying so you
2:05:42can't know whether the if you see an
2:05:45adverse effect in in an offspring you
2:05:47have to be very careful that it's not
2:05:49something that they've gotten because of
2:05:51problems that led the couple to seek
2:05:54assisted reproduction you see you follow
2:05:56me yep y yeah um super challenging
2:06:00fascinating problem so in anticipation
2:06:03of this sitdown together uh I put a
2:06:08question out on X formerly known as
2:06:10Twitter um I let people know that I was
2:06:14hosting an expert in endocrine
2:06:17disruptors in phalates and pesticides
2:06:21rep productive uh implications Etc and I
2:06:25asked for questions and they came up
2:06:28with a huge number of excellent
2:06:30questions many of which you've already
2:06:31answered things like um is tap water
2:06:35safe what can we do to our tap water you
2:06:36mentioned you distill water my
2:06:38understanding is that reverse osmosis
2:06:40provided there's re mineral
2:06:42remineralization excuse me difficult
2:06:44word to say can also be effective Etc um
2:06:47there were a lot of questions about um
2:06:50cosmetics and laundry Det
2:06:52detergents um I don't know if we
2:06:54discussed laundry detergents what do you
2:06:56use in terms of laundry detergent um or
2:06:59that is presumably one can find I don't
2:07:02even remember okay don't go by my
2:07:05product okay for one thing I'm not going
2:07:08to be pregnant anytime soon no um the uh
2:07:13I I believe there are some solutions um
2:07:15related to the uh like instead of bleach
2:07:18people can use um hydrogen peroxide
2:07:21can't speak about specific products
2:07:23actually um you know I can tell you who
2:07:25can you might like to talk to her so you
2:07:27remember I mentioned million marker the
2:07:29company that did the inventory not the
2:07:31comp well they are a company but um so
2:07:34they look at million marker I think
2:07:36you'd be interested okay yeah and and
2:07:39and the person who runs at Genoa is a
2:07:42Chinese
2:07:43American um who uh and a friend of mine
2:07:46and we're going to be writing a grant
2:07:48together um and she participated in the
2:07:52film so our participants send their so
2:07:54what if you go to million
2:07:56marker you log on and if you agree to
2:07:59pay whatever it is $199 I think you send
2:08:03your urine in they give you a kit you
2:08:05send your urine in and they test it for
2:08:06all these things in your urine so you
2:08:08know what's in your body you might want
2:08:09to think about it might be interesting
2:08:11and and then if you pay another 100 I
2:08:13think you get these this counseling and
2:08:16so blah BL you can see the different
2:08:17levels of but she knows all about
2:08:20products I don't know about product
2:08:22because it's a moving Target I don't and
2:08:24also I don't like to talk about product
2:08:27names because it sounds like I'm
2:08:28endorsing them so um right and we won't
2:08:30um expect you to give product names and
2:08:33um I'll follow your recommendation that
2:08:35you just gave um somebody asked about
2:08:37food dyes just generally the dieses in
2:08:39Foods I saw an incredible study recently
2:08:42that Science magazine covered so Science
2:08:44magazine very reputable of course yellow
2:08:47number five I forget what the precise
2:08:49name is but the thing that makes Cheetos
2:08:51really bright they put it on the bellies
2:08:53of adult mice and it literally makes
2:08:56them
2:08:57translucent oh yeah I saw you can see
2:08:59the organs saw that it's wild it's so
2:09:03scary I sent it to Rogan and he uh I
2:09:05won't he was like whoa his his version
2:09:07of wo um I was like I also said wo he
2:09:11probably said holy right um no
2:09:14he no no I'm not going to say what it
2:09:16said but it was he didn't curse there
2:09:18were a number of questions about
2:09:20household items again not looking for
2:09:22specific products but for instance soaps
2:09:27body wash cleaning sprays floor cleaners
2:09:29laundry related
2:09:31cleaners do any or all of these contain
2:09:35endocrine disruptors unless one is
2:09:36careful to to find the ones that don't
2:09:39okay um receipts how serious is it
2:09:42should we be concerned about the bpas
2:09:44and other end endocrine disruptors on
2:09:46receipts yes so and my suggestion is
2:09:49just ask for an electronic receipt MH
2:09:52and then you don't have to deal with it
2:09:53yeah but they're definitely absorbed you
2:09:56know into your body any impact of um
2:10:00endocrine disruptors of the sort we've
2:10:02talked about today on the thyroid system
2:10:05yes presumably in the in the bad
2:10:07Direction not yeah I mean this is an
2:10:09interesting point let me just say
2:10:10another word about it so
2:10:13um the there was a ongoing study in the
2:10:17Pharaoh Islands off Denmark and
2:10:21they studied posos chemicals and showed
2:10:25that um people who fished there there
2:10:28were Fisher people and they they ate the
2:10:30fish and they were getting high levels
2:10:32of posos in their body and had um this
2:10:36is published um effects on their um
2:10:39immune response so my concern and I
2:10:43don't know if anyone's looked at this is
2:10:45given everyone's vaccination like our
2:10:48our is our response to vaccination now
2:10:52altered by these chemicals I don't know
2:10:54but I think it's a really interesting
2:10:55question but there there is a whole
2:10:57field of the effect of these chemicals
2:10:59on the thyroid system and there's a lot
2:11:01of evidence that it's adverse can these
2:11:04endocrine disruptors be detoxed from the
2:11:07body is there anything that we can do
2:11:09what's the quickest ways um things like
2:11:11sweating um are there ways to improve
2:11:14liver clearance of these endocrine
2:11:16disruptors that the answer to that
2:11:18depends on the class of chemicals so the
2:11:20chemicals that are water
2:11:22soluble in particular the photes and the
2:11:25bisphenols leave the body in a matter of
2:11:28hours you don't have to do anything you
2:11:30just have to stop taking them
2:11:33in right the forever chemicals the um
2:11:37posos
2:11:38chemicals pesticides
2:11:40are and though but so it has to do with
2:11:43how they're handled by the body are they
2:11:46put into the you know if they're water
2:11:48soluble you pee them out if they're fat
2:11:50Sol soluble
2:11:51they're going to be around for a long
2:11:52time so it just depends on the chemical
2:11:55structure of the chemic of the the
2:11:57compound there was a question about
2:11:59non-stick pans you covered that earlier
2:12:01if someone had to pick between non-stick
2:12:03coated pans versus seasoned iron pans no
2:12:06question iron there's no risk associated
2:12:09with SE seasoned iron panss a number of
2:12:12other questions such as why does Europe
2:12:15have such more stringent laws Etc um
2:12:19lots of questions about atrazine
2:12:21questions about ointments and fragrances
2:12:23you've covered and I I must say that um
2:12:27as I scroll through these hundreds of
2:12:29questions if not more um you've done an
2:12:34amazing job at um clarifying for us
2:12:38what's known what is not known and
2:12:42essentially where it's a probably should
2:12:45avoid definitely avoid and look we just
2:12:48we just don't know right um and well you
2:12:50know there I have to distinguish between
2:12:52we don't just don't know and I just
2:12:54don't know it's not I mean there are
2:12:55many things that I don't
2:12:57know sure it's a huge field so you know
2:13:01maybe with some you know ask the
2:13:03question of chat
2:13:05gpg yeah we we'll be certain to um ask
2:13:08chat GPT and we will be certain to ask
2:13:11um uh other experts in in these areas
2:13:14but um I just want to make very
2:13:18clear I and everyone listening and
2:13:21watching truly appreciate the work that
2:13:23you've been doing in this area for a
2:13:26number of years we're so grateful that
2:13:27you took that Airline flight with your
2:13:29this chemist um that you mentioned um
2:13:34that you stored the urine of those
2:13:36pregnant women that you analyzed it and
2:13:39that you've gone down this path of of
2:13:41exploring you know things that are
2:13:43really disruptive to our health and
2:13:45potentially to the existence of our
2:13:47species as um you know as we talked
2:13:50about earlier
2:13:51there is the possibility that we go
2:13:53extinct um not because of a meteor but
2:13:56because we fail to replace ourselves um
2:13:58and that we fail to replace ourselves
2:14:00because we destroy our biological
2:14:02ability to replace ourselves I think
2:14:04it's hard for people to um internalize
2:14:07that very real possibility because we
2:14:09feel ourselves sitting in traffic with
2:14:11thousands of other people and go there's
2:14:13too many people right this kind of thing
2:14:14but um I want to thank you for the work
2:14:18that you've been doing and continue to
2:14:20do for your willingness to write books
2:14:22and to educate the public on podcasts
2:14:24like this and others because um these
2:14:27are topics that are pretty emotionally
2:14:29loaded for people I don't think anything
2:14:32gets people quite as inflamed as the
2:14:34idea that what they've been been
2:14:36ingesting and exposed to um especially
2:14:39in terms of consumables that they've
2:14:40spent their hard-earned money on have
2:14:42been um harming them harming them and
2:14:45their offspring and generations to
2:14:47follow that there's something that
2:14:49really lands deep in in that way but you
2:14:51you've also offered us a lot of um
2:14:53possibility and a sense of agency over
2:14:55these these things and I love um that
2:14:58you weave your math and statistics and
2:15:02probability uh Theory background into
2:15:04all of this because what comes through
2:15:06is um intense curiosity intense rigor
2:15:09and a real desire to do good so thank
2:15:12you so much for joining us and please
2:15:14come back again as you make more
2:15:16discoveries it's been really fun thank
2:15:18you for joining me for today's
2:15:19discussion with Dr shaa Swan to learn
2:15:22more about her work and to find a link
2:15:24to her excellent books on these topics
2:15:26please see the links in the show note
2:15:28captions also I should mention that if
2:15:30you're interested in learning more about
2:15:32microplastics and endocrine disruptors I
2:15:34did a solo episode of The huberman Lab
2:15:36podcast on that topic and that is also
2:15:38linked in the show note captions if
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2:18:00[Music]

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