The New Methods of Malthusianism: Plastic Poisoning

Originally posted on Quora May 10, 2023

The just so story of falling birth rates in the west, that higher education attainment delays marriage and thus child bearing and that urbanization makes child rearing more expensive and less beneficial appears true at face value; everywhere we look in the world birth rates trend higher in rural agrarian areas and lower in urban areas. However, it does not explain why male fertility health has dropped more than 50% since the 1970s and even fertility health for females in early adulthood has declined. It also does not explain the steady generational decline in testosterone levels: 25% in just the past two decades. The naysayers will usually point to obesity and sedentary lifestyles ignoring the very evident culprit in the petro-chemical industry as many paid shills and ignorant dupes are bound too. Soluble plastics have been known endocrine disruptors for decades and a particular class of soluble plastics called phthalates are ubiquitous in everything from food, to medicine, personal hygiene products like soap and deodorants, cosmetics, laundry detergent and even furniture. There are a plethora of avenues for humans to absorb phthalates in their modern post-industrial environment and the effects are devastating.

First and foremost, several studies have found that men who have higher concentrations of phthalates in their urine have lower testosterone, lower sperm counts and worse sperm motility. Women are not immune either as higher concentrations of phthalates in females are associated with preterm labor, low birth weight babies, and even miscarriages. Humans are most vulnerable to these changes around preconception, pregnancy and early childhood. Professor Shanna Swan of Mount Sinai has found that petro chemicals like Phthalates reduce fertility by mimicking the sex hormones the body naturally produces and disrupting the production of estrogen, progesterone and androgen.

Those that can interfere with or mimic the body’s sex hormones – such as testosterone and estrogen – because these make reproduction possible. They can make the body think it has enough of a particular hormone and it doesn’t need to make any more, so production goes down.

For instance BPA and its analogs (e.g. bisphenol s and f) used to harden plastics mimics estrogen.

Phthalates, used to make plastic soft and flexible, are of paramount concern. They are in everybody and we are probably primarily exposed through food as we use soft plastic in food manufacture, processing and packaging. They lower testosterone and so have the strongest influences on the male side, for example diminishing sperm count, though they are bad for women, too, shown to decrease libido and increase risk of early puberty, premature ovarian failure, miscarriage and premature birth.

Western fertility health has declined so rapidly that Swan predicts that by 2045 we will have a median sperm count of zero and most couples who want to reproduce will need clinical assistance.

I wish I could say that the detriments of phthalates stop there but they don’t. Greater phthalate exposure has also been linked to obesity, asthma and breast cancer. Some cohort studies have found that women with higher concentrations of certain phthalate metabolites in their urine sample are more likely to have or develop breast cancer. This includes a large cohort study that took urine samples from women of 5 different ethnic groups finding that urine samples with higher concentrations of certain phthalate metabolites were, on average, taken 5.5 years before the diagnosis of breast cancer. The effect of oxidative stress caused by greater phthalate exposure was found to be particularly high among polynesian women in Hawaii. Certain phthalates such as BzBP and DBP have been found to cause cell proliferation and tumor formation by invading breast cancer cells that lack hormone receptors. Certain phthalates that interfere with the progesterone receptor system such as DEHP, and its analogs, have been found to multiple human breast cancer cells this way. The Long Island Breast Cancer Project found that the metabolites of DEHP were associated with higher breast cancer mortality for women in the normal to lower BMI range while there was an inverse relationship between metabolite levels and mortality for overweight and obese women. While women tend to have higher concentrations of phthalates than men and blacks have higher levels than whites no one is safe from this petro-chemical poisoning.

Sources: Scientific America: Growing Evidence Shows Common Chemicals May Harm Sperm and Pregnancies

Dr. Shanna Swan: 'Most Couples May Have to Use Assisted Reproduction by 2045

Breast Cancer Prevention Partners: Phthalates and Breast Cancer