http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1529765/posts
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Although wastewater treatment plants remove contaminants, they aren't equipped to remove estrogen, so the hormone is released into waters and attaches to sedimentary particles, Kelley said
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But what effect is all that extra estrogen having?
Is it causing guys to have puberty later and have less testosterone?
http://health.yahoo.com/news/168226
Quote:
Testosterone Tumbling in American Males
October 27, 2006
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The reasons for this trend are unclear, said researchers at the New England Research Institutes in Waterdown, Mass. They noted that neither aging nor certain other health factors, such as smoking or obesity, can fully explain the decline.
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Is it causing girls to enter puberty earlier and develop faster?
http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=2610700
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Experts are not sure of all the causes of early puberty. Some think it's genetic or environmental.
Manzi says some have linked the early onset of puberty to better nutrition and even obesity.
It is more likely to affect girls than boys, she added.
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http://abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=2610353
Quote:
...Studies have tracked an increasing trend of early sexual development.
By age 8, almost half of African-American girls and 15 percent of Caucasian girls start developing pubic hair or breasts.
"The switch that normally gets turned on for pubertal development gets turned on too early," said Dr. Diane Stafford of Children's Hospital in Boston.
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Although I'm not sure that there is really a correlation, I wonder if they have seen the same decrease in testosterone and early puberty in countries that have a lower usage of birth control (with the pills that have estrogen and progesterone). But it is interesting to see that the African-American girls start earlier than the Caucasian ones? Do more African-American girls drink water that has estrogen in it? Or is it something totally different (like maybe obesity causes higher levels of estrogen*), and since that estrogen gets expelled in urine which goes to the waste water treatment plant that can't get rid of it, it gets consumed by someone else making their testosterone decrease and estrogen increase(causing the health problems).
Now I am going to sound like one of those fluorine in the water people. But, if it wasn't possible to remove this extra estrogen from the water supply, would they tell us?
Maybe I am just paranoid that in 50 years we will see this happening more and more.
*
http://www.endotext.org/obesity/obes...ityframe12.htm
35. Schneider G, Kirschner MA, Berkowitz R, et al: Increased estrogen production in obese men. J Clin Endocrinol Metab 48:633-638, 1979
38. Kley HK, Solbach HG, McKinnan JC: Testosterone decrease and estrogen increase in male patient with obesity. Acta Endocrinol 91:553, 1979