If you have ever taken a drink of water from a garden hose on a hot summer day, don’t make it a habit! In fact don’t do that at all. Many other pollutants and chemicals in our environment and house-hold products can disrupt not only our endocrine system but our health in general.
Most garden hoses have a warning label attached to them. The warning includes not drinking from it. The reason? Garden hoses are not intended to be a drinking vessel. There are no regulations about what kind of chemicals can be in them. They are far from natural. They are primarily composed of toxic hormone-disrupting chemicals that may harm your health in many ways.
The Ecology Center a non-profit research group, tested 21 different garden hoses purchased from popular stores such as Home Depot, Lowe’s, Target and Walmart. They looked for chemicals like lead, cadmium, bromine (associated with flame retardants), chlorine (which indicates the presence of polyvinyl chloride, or (PVC), phthalates, and bisphenol-A (BPA).
One-third of the hoses tested contained high levels of one or more chemicals of concern, and more than half (67 percent) were made of PVC. PVC is a significant source of exposure to chemicals known as phthalates, which are used in plasticizers.
The total phthalate content of the hoses ranged from 11 percent to 18 percent by weight, and all of those made from PVC that were tested for phthalates contained one or more chemicals banned for use in children’s products by the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC).
Phthalates have been shown to disrupt the endocrine systems of wildlife, causing testicular cancer, genital deformations, low sperm counts, and infertility in a number of species, including polar bears, deer, whales, and otters, just to name a few. This chemical has also been shown to impair fetal brain development.
If you are lucky enough to live in a country or region that gets a lot of rain, collect it in barrels and use that water for your garden and yard. The Conservation Foundation states that “Around 40% of total household water used during the summer months is for watering lawns and gardens. Rainwater doesn’t contain chlorine, lime or calcium, which make it ideal for watering your flowers and vegetable garden or washing your car or windows. You may notice a decrease in your water bill. Even if you don’t have an intended use for the water, emptying the rain barrel after a storm reduces the rate and volume of storm water the sewer system and our rivers and streams have to manage at a peak time.” If you are in a highly polluted country or city, I’d question the contents of the rain water. If you collect it, consider having it tested before using it. Remember that when using rain water on a vegetable garden, the contents in the water transfers to the plant. It is best to have the water as clean and pure as possible.
Other pollutants can come from indoor daily exposure to potentially hazardous particulate air pollution. In an Indoor Air study conducted in a suburb of the city of Kuopio, Finland, relatively short-lasting wood and candle burning of a few hours increased residents’ daily exposure to potentially hazardous particiulate air pollution. Associations between indoor air pollutants and building ventilation systems or cooking environments where also observed.
The study found that the local outdoor levels of certain pollutants and ozone were the most important determinants of indoor levels of the same air pollutants.
“Ample burning of wood in small-scale room heaters and sauna stoves is likely to increase chronic personal exposures in the neighborhood to particulate matter that contains substantial amounts of soot and hazardous organic compounds like polycyclic organic hydrocarbons. This exposure does not take place only while staying outdoors but also indoors at home due to effective passage of the small particles through the building shield,” the authors wrote. “Part of the emissions adding to this type of hazardous exposure among residents, also including susceptible populations groups, originates directly from the personal use of a wood-fired room heaters or sauna stoves. Insufficient natural ventilation in older houses further elevates the indoor levels of the hazardous particles.” This study was done by Taina Siponen, et. al. Titled “Wood stove use and other determinants of personal and indoor exposures to particulate air pollution and ozone among elderly persons in a Northern Suburb.” Indoor Air, 2019.
There are thousands of chemicals and toxins in our environment that can give us health problems. Endocrine disruptors are chemicals that can interfere with the body’s endocrine system and produce adverse development, reproductive, neurological, and immune effects in both humans and wildlife. A wide range of substances, both natural and man-made, are thought to cause endocrine disruption, including pharmaceuticals, dioxin and dioxin-like compounds, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), DDT and other pesticides, and plasticizers such as bisphenol A. Endocrine distruptive ingredients are found in products of all kinds. Such as bottles, metal food cans, detergents, flame retardants, food, toys, cosmetics, and pesticides. The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and the National Toxicology Program, support studies to determine whether exposure to endocrine disruptors of endometriosis and some cancers. Research shows that endocrine disruptors may pose the greatest risk during prenatal and early postnatal development when organ and neural systems are forming.
The endocrine system is one of the body’s main communication networks and is responsible for controlling and coordinating numerous body functions. Hormones are first produced by the endocrine tissues, such as the ovaries, testes, adrenal, pituitary, thyroid, and pancreas, and then secreted into the blood to act as the body’s chemical messengers where they have direct communication and coordination among other tissues throughout the body.
For example, hormones work with the nervous system, reproductive system, kidneys, gut, liver, and fat to help maintain and control energy levels, reproduction, growth and development, internal balance of body systems, or homeostatis, response to surroundings, stress and injury. Our hormones are highly sensitive to disruption.
Endocrine disruptors can mimic naturally occuring hormones in the body like estrogens (the female sex hormone), androgens (the male sex hormone), and thyroid hormones, potentially producing overstimulation (hypothyroidism).
Endocrine disruptors can bind to a receptor within a cell and block the endogenous hormone from binding. The normal signal then fails to occur and the body fails to respond properly. Examples of chemicals that block or antagonize hormones are anti-estrogen and anti-androgens.
They can also interfere or block the way natural hormones or their receptors are made or controlled, for example, by altering their metabolism in the liver.
Both The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and The National Toxicology Program, support studies to determine and understand how these chemicals work, and how to understand the effects they may have in various animal and human populations, with the long term goals of developing prevention and intervention strategies to reduce any adverse effects on the total population. The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, is a great resource to read more about your enviornmental health.
