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We now know that certain pollutants and chemicals in the environment can affect both male and female fertility, and there may be many more substances that we come into contact with in everyday life that combine to form a ‘toxic cocktail’ with unknown long-term consequences.

The problem is that these suspect substances seem to be absolutely everywhere – in the food we eat, the air we breathe, and the things we use at work and at home. We can avoid many of them, and minimize our exposure to others. But we obviously cannot completely eliminate them, short of finding a non-polluted desert island to go and live on.

However, reducing your exposure is only part of the plan. There are plenty of ways to fortify yourself and your partner against the effects of unavoidable exposure and to ensure that toxins are successfully eliminated from your system. In my experience, dramatic results have been achieved by couples whose ‘unexplained fertility’ turns out to have been due to exposure to some of these substances.

Xenoestrogens

These are synthetic oestrogens which affect the fertility of wildlife and are causing some animals to grow both male and female sex organs. They come from pesticides and plastics and are stored in body fat and can affect men and women differently.

The massive proliferation of xenoestrogens has coincided with:

• A decrease in sperm counts of 50 per cent over the last ten years.

• An increase in testicular cancer.

• Earlier onset of puberty. (At the turn of the century the average age was 15. Now some girls as young as eight are growing breasts and pubic hair. It has been found that girls can enter puberty almost a year earlier if their pregnant mothers had higher levels of two synthetic chemicals, PCBs and DDE, while they were pregnant.)

• A doubling in the number of boys born with undescended testes (which means they may not produce sperm) between 1962 and 1981.

• Increasing numbers of male babies born with problems with their penis. Some boys are born with the opening of the urethra (where urine passes out of the body) on the side of the penis instead of the top. In extreme cases male babies have been born with both male and female organs.

Synthetic oestrogens, similar to those in use in the pesticides and plastics industry, have been linked to cancers and abnormalities.

Years ago women who suffered recurrent miscarriages were treated with a synthetic oestrogen called dithethylstilbestrol (DES). Now their grown-up daughters, who were exposed to DES in the womb, are showing high rates of cervical abnormalities that can lead to recurrent miscarriages or infertility. Some have developed a rare and sometimes fatal vaginal cancer (clear-cell adenocarcinoma).Their sons are not so severely affected but some have suffered mild genital abnormalities.

Further evidence comes from Professor Ana Soto in Boston, USA, who was studying breast cancer cells stored in large incubators. These cancer cells started to divide and multiply as if oestrogen was present. But when the laboratory changed the tubes on the incubators the cells stopped dividing. It turned out that nonylphenol, a synthetic oestrogen similar to those widely used in paints, toiletries, agricultural chemicals and detergents, had been used in the manufacture of the tubes.

In another example of the power of these chemicals, some male workers developed breasts after inhaling dust containing bisphenol A, a synthetic oestrogen used in a wide range of packaging (e.g. for soft drinks, bottled Water and even babies’ bottles).

Phthalates, found in PVC, food packaging and glues, are another class of chemical which has an oestrogen-like effect on humans.

Types of chemicals that affect hormone balance and fertility include:

• Pesticides (DDT, DDE, endosulfan, methoxychlor, heptachlor, toxaphene, dieldrin, lindane)

• Plastic compounds (Alkyphenols such as nonylphenol and octylphenol, biphenolic compounds such as bisphenol A, phthalates)

• Pharmaceutical drugs (Synthetic drugs like DES)

• Industrial substances (PCBs, dioxin)

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