A useful material for many reasons: Strong, flexible, abundant and cheap. This is why businesses love using this substance in their products and as packaging for their products. A very good material for profit, yet it may be the material that drives our species towards extinction – and that statement is not as dramatic as you might initially think.
Studies are showing that testosterone levels in men of the same age have been in consistent decline for several decades and are considered ‘alarming’ from an evolutionary standpoint.
Another, even more worrying trend is the drop in male sperm counts which has been correlated with an increase in male infertility: Global trends show that between 1973 and 2018, sperm counts fell by an average of 1.2% per year resulting in a drop from 104 to 49 million sperm/ml. That means our sperm counts have more than halved. This rate of decline accelerated from the year 2000 to more than 2.6% per year.
If you haven’t already realised, this is a huge issue. Male infertility hasn’t stopped rising, in fact, its rate has accelerated. If this trend continues, who knows how long it may be till the majority of the male population is infertile. At that point, humanity’s future looks very bleak and if most couples are unable to reproduce – might there even be a future for humanity?
The Problem
The chair you sit on, the clothes you wear, the keyboard you touch or the bed covers you sleep under. Almost everything you come into contact with on a day-to-day basis contains this material which is secretly tanking your testosterone levels – and has been the culprit of the worldwide drop in testosterone and infertility levels over the last 50 years. Can you guess what I’m talking about?
Take a moment and look around the room or environment you are in right now – count how many things are made of, or may contain plastic in some form.
If you are in any normal modern location, you most likely witnessed various plastic-encased objects surrounding you at this very moment. The harder you look, the more you will notice.
What makes plastics such a big deal then? Plastics as well as other things, are known as being ‘estrogenic’ – This article focuses on plastics because plastics are the most common source of estrogenic exposure. As the name suggests, estrogenics are artificial chemicals that bind to estrogen receptors in the body.
Straight away, it’s pretty obvious that if you care any amount for your testosterone levels, estrogenics are already bad news.
So does that mean someone should increase their exposure to estrogenics if they want to promote estrogen levels? This is a definite NO as estrogenics have many side effects other than increasing estrogen levels – and since estrogen receptors are present in most of the cells in your body, estrogenics can change most of the cells in your body, including your brain, fat, muscles, reproductive organs etc.
Plastics are estrogenic because they include a chemical called phthalates. Phthalates improve plastic clarity, flexibility and durability, They also improve the appearance of plastic by making it appear less cloudy.
In our current age, what’s obvious (amongst men at least) is the trend of diminishing muscle mass, testosterone and fertility compared to previous generations. Meanwhile, rates of obesity, cancer, blood clots, depression, and allergies are rising at a rate far higher than that of population increase – and all of these can be traced back to estrogenics.
As mentioned before, plastics are estrogenic because of the phthalates contained within them. The phthalates in plastics, however, sit in ‘molecular cracks’ like adding salt to food or glitter in carpet. And like glitter in carpet, phthalates are nearly impossible to remove – they release into liquids or foods upon contact.
It seems pretty clear then that this is not a substance you would ever want to increase your exposure to. And what’s even worse? The effects of these chemicals even has an impact through generations. And I’m talking about, even if your child has never been exposed to estrogenics (unlikely), they can STILL develop health defects just from your exposure. It can even affect their children and their grandchildren…
Estrogenics are seriously bad news. This isn’t just about you anymore. It could be about your whole bloodline
What is the solution?
As you may have discovered from looking around, plastics are EVERYWHERE, let alone all the other estrogenic sources which I have not covered in this article. This can result in a pretty depressing view of our hopes for a solution. While extremely difficult to completely eliminate contact with estrogenics, there are things you can do to considerably reduce your exposure and therefore considerably improve your (and your future generation’s) health.
The main issue is that people don’t realise just how much plastic they are exposed to on a daily basis and how much of it is getting absorbed into the body.
Here is a list of things that you probably own which most likely include plastic:
- Plastic Clothes (Polyester, Nylon and Elastane)
- Plastic underwear
- Plastic toothbrush
- Plastic office chair
- Plastic water bottle
- Plastic-wrapped vegetables/meat
- Plastic phone case
- Plastic headphones
- Plastic bed covers + sheets
- Plastic pillow covers
- Plastic pen
- Plastic Keyboard + Mouse
- Plastic table
- Plastic food containers
- plastic cutlery
Yeah… It doesn’t look good.
The ideal scenario would be to eliminate everything or find non-plastic alternatives to everything on that list:
- 100% cotton clothes
- 100% cotton underwear
- Wooden toothbrush
- fabric/leather office chair
- Stainless steel water bottle
- vegetables/meat in cardboard boxes or wrapped in wax paper
- leather phone case
- 100% cotton bed covers + sheets
- 100% cotton pillow covers
- Metal pen
- Wooden table
- Glass food containers
- Metal/ceramic cutlery
Click here for a place to purchase common items which are non-plastic and won’t harm your health
Understandably, optimizing everything on that list immediately is unlikely to happen, so just choose the most important ones to begin with (clothes, water bottles, food) and slowly implement more non-plastic alternatives.
Side note ‘BPA Free’ is not enough to ensure safety from these chemicals. Even when ‘BPA Free’ is advertised on a product, companies still generally use equally harmful alternatives meaning the only way to truly avoid the negative health effects is to find 100% non-plastic alternatives.
Estrogenics and heat
An important thing to note is that this release of phthalates into food and liquid happens significantly faster in hotter temperatures. Thankfully, some people have begun to take notice of this fact and that is why the advice to ‘never microwave plastics’ came about.
That means that if there is exposure to plastic, it is always better in cold environments. So if you have food wrapped in plastic, storing it in a cold environment such as a fridge or freezer will limit its absorption of phthalates. Never store hot food or drink in plastic containers.
This applies to clothes aswell. If you have to wear plastic clothing, don’t do it in hot environments or situations where you are likely to produce a lot of body heat (such as exercising) as this will increase the absorption of the harmful chemicals into your body.
Conclusion
Along with their terrible effect on the environment, here is another reason to despise the existence of plastics. Although we have all become accustomed to their presence in our everyday lives, we must recognise the impact that plastics, as well as estrogenics in general, are having on our health and make an effort to eliminate them as much as possible for the benefit of our future generations, as well as humanity as a whole.
Learn More About Estrogenics:
Check out this site for more valuable information on estrogenics and a place to purchase more non-plastic alternatives: https://estrogenicfreeitems.com/
Most of the knowledge in this post was gathered from this one book. A life-changing read:
Estrogeneration:
