What Is Going On With Men's Hormones?

Episode #7: What Is Going On With Men's Hormones?

Testosterone’s down. Sperm counts are plummeting. And no, it’s not “just getting older.” In this episode, we’re digging into the science behind endocrine disruptors, those chemicals in plastics, personal care products, and everyday items and how they’re wreaking havoc on men’s hormones and fertility. If you're a man over 35 (or love one), this is your wake-up call.

We break down:

• What endocrine disruptors are and where they hide
• Real, recent stats on testosterone and sperm health
• How plastics, PFAS and phthalates impact your body
• Simple changes to protect your hormones today

This episode is raw, practical, and backed by science…no BS, just straight talk about what your body’s up against and what you can do about it.

EPISODE LINKS:

• Check out the Environmental Working Group website or download their app here➡️ EWG
• Get your free guide ➡️ 10 Toxin Swaps to Protect Your Hormones 
• Get the Transcript 

Substack blog: https://oliviabellwellness.substack.com

Website: https://oliviabell.co

I hope you find some time today for some peace, some plants and some paws!

☮️🌿🐾

Jo

Transcript

Jo Swensson 0:00

Welcome to Untamed and Unfiltered Wellness, the podcast where we're ripping up the rulebook of conventional wellness because one size fits all, never fits anyone. I'm your host, Jo Swensson, integrative health coach, herbalist, and the CEO and founder of Olivia Bell, a comprehensive lifestyle wellness company.

Jo Swensson 0:26

Today, we're doing a very special episode all about men. specifically men's hormones. Let me hit you with a number, 50%. That's how much sperm counts in men has dropped globally over the last 40 years. Testosterone seems to be circling the drain, but the question is, what the heck is going on with men's hormones? One big answer, endocrine disruptors. These are chemicals you can find in everyday products, including plastics, pesticides, and chemicals, and there's a good chance we're swimming in them too. So let's get into this.

Jo Swensson 0:59

People are exposed to endocrine disruptors through food, beverages, pesticides used on our foods, cosmetics, cologne, things that say fragrance or have parabens in them. In essence, a lot of things. Endocrine disruptors are chemicals that mimic or block our hormones, especially testosterone and estrogen. What happens is it throws off the endocrine system. That's the body's hormone command center. And the outcome is wrecked fertility, mood swings, belly fat, brain brain fog, hormonal whiplash. How do we avoid this? Well, thing is, there's 85,000 human-made chemicals in the world. Over 1,000 of them contain endocrine disruptors.

Jo Swensson 1:38

What I want to do today is focus on three specific type of endocrine disruptor sources so that we can talk about a strategy on how to reduce our exposures. The three things I'm going to focus on are plastics, PFAS, and pesticides.

Jo Swensson 1:51

Let's get into the plastics first. We've all heard of BPA-free plastics. I think it's great that our manufacturers have tried to take out BPA. And by the way, that stands for bisphenol. But there's also a bisphenol S, a BPS, and there's phthalates that exist in plastics as well. If you look up phthalates, it's spelled P-H-T-H-A-L-A-T-E-S. You find these in water bottles, plastic food containers, receipts from the gas pumps, even in our shower curtains and the linings of our canned and tinned foods.

Jo Swensson 2:24

The second endocrine disruptor I want to focus on is PFAS. PFAS is an acronym, and it stands for polyfluorochloric acid. substances, which is why we call it PFAS. PFAS has been around since the 1950s. It's a complex group of synthetic chemicals that's used in a lot of consumer products. They're more regulated now than they were in the 70s. The sad thing is they're also known as a forever chemical because no matter what you do, they will never break down, especially in the environment. And it gets into the soil and our water sources. What makes PFOS unique is that they create a nonstick surface. So everybody's heard of Teflon, the Teflon coated pans. Those were created with PFAS. But there's other things as well. Anything that is flame retardant, water resistant, grease resistant, or stain resistant also has a PFAS chemical in that coating.

Jo Swensson 3:13

And the last endocrine disruptor I want to focus on is pesticides, specifically glyphosate-based herbicides. That's going to be products like Roundup, insecticides, and fungicides. These are things you can buy over the counter and spray on your lawn or in your yard. And sometimes we use these things in our home.

Jo Swensson 3:30

Why do we care about these things. This is why. Sperm counts in men have dropped over 50% from 1973 to 2018. That was the result of a 2022 study done in the human reproduction update. Number two, low testosterone is showing up in men in the rate of a 1% increase every year, even men in their 30s. Phthalates in BPA have been directly linked to lower testosterone, poor sperm motility. Those are the two chemicals found in plastics. PFAS that's commonly found in packaging is now showing up in our water supply as well as our soil has been linked to lower semen quality and reduced testosterone. That is from a 2023 study in the environmental health perspectives. Also in 2023, a review confirmed that BPA reduces testosterone and damages testicular cells. If these Statistics don't scare you a lot. Here's the next ones that will. The NIH released information that says certain phthalates have been associated with a decreased gestational age and an increased risk of preterm birth. So these things are not only affecting us, they're affecting our children, and then they're affecting our fertility.

Jo Swensson 4:43

If a 38-year-old man can have the hormone profile of a 60-year-old without even knowing it, I'm going to say it's not aging. I'm calling bullshit. Because I'm saying it's environmental. And this is why. When testosterone drops, most men are handed a prescription before they're ever given a real explanation. These medications are great. if it truly is a hormonal disorder. But if the problem is environmental, all we're doing is putting a band-aid on the problem.

Jo Swensson 5:11

Let's talk about the medications that men are being prescribed for low testosterone. Hormone replacement therapy. Just like women are going on HRT for perimenopause and menopausal symptoms, TRT, which is testosterone replacement therapy, is commonly being prescribed to men. They can get that in the form of injection patches or gels. It's a synthetic hormone that's a short-term fix. It will increase energy libido, and muscle mass, but it does suppress the body's natural production of testosterone. It can shrink the testicles and impact fertility.

Jo Swensson 5:41

If a man goes on TRT but still wants to be able to produce children, they will also be prescribed an HCG. That mimics LH, which is luteinizing hormone, which we use for fertility in men and women. But it mimics LH in men to stimulate testosterone production. That way, men can maintain their fertility.

Jo Swensson 6:01

The third and final drug that's commonly prescribed is called Clomid. Clomid is used in an off-label capacity when it comes to increasing testosterone because it increases our LH hormone, the luteinizing hormone, and the FSH, which is the follicular stimulating hormones. Those two are It's not... primarily prescribed for men to boost testosterone, but it does work in that capacity. So it is commonly prescribed.

Jo Swensson 6:28

Again, if the causes of low testosterone in a man is through environmental factors, plastics, phthalates, PFAS, and toxins, giving these medications is not going to solve the problem. What do we do? Well, the possibility of a complete detox from PFAS is unlikely because it is everywhere. It's in our bodies. It's in the environment. It's in the water. It's in the soil. We can reduce our exposure to PFAS as well as phthalates and BPA and BPS, pesticides. And by reducing our exposure, we can also help support the natural detoxification process that exists in our bodies.

Jo Swensson 7:04

This is what we're going to do. We're going to make lifestyle changes, some dietary changes, and maybe even add some supplementation. But here's the thing. The immediate actions you can take are really easy to do. In fact, when I start sharing these things with people, they're like, oh, I didn't think about that. That works.

Jo Swensson 7:22

The first thing I want you to do is I want you to ditch single-use plastics. I did this over the course of a while because I couldn't afford to throw all my Tupperware away or all my plastic takeaway containers. I would go to TJ Mac and buy plastic. a couple of glass food containers. The other thing I did immediately was I stopped drinking out of plastic water bottles. I don't just mean the plastic water bottles we buy in the store. I'm talking about the plastic refillable water bottles we have at home. I had stainless steel and glass bottles. I just wasn't using them. I made that switch. And I bet if you check in the cupboards at home, you've got stainless steel water bottles and glass water bottles too. What you need to do is make the switch away from plastic and go more towards sustainable products, the stainless steels and the glass. If neither one of those things is something you want to do, then here's what I'm going to beg you to do. Do not reheat any plastics in the microwave. What happens is the chemical consistency of plastic changes when it's heated. If you've ever left a water bottle in the car, you know when you go to pick it up how squishy it feels. That's because the plastic is starting to off gas. The same thing happens with our food takeaway containers and any plastic food storage containers that we have. If you're not willing to switch to away from plastic water bottles and you're not willing to change the food containers you have, please take your food out of the takeaway container, put it on your plate, and then stick it in the microwave to reheat it.

Jo Swensson 8:52

The second thing I want you to do is take a look at any personal care products, household cleaners, anything that you're going to expose yourself to through cleaning, whether it's yourself, your body, the house, however you want to look at it that way. Look at the ingredients And as you start running out of products, if you can afford to throw everything away and start over again, great. I could not, so I slowly started replacing products as I ran out of them. Look for products that don't have parabens or phthalates in the ingredient list, nor do they have fragrance. How do you know which ones to buy? There's a great app out there. It's by the Environmental Working Group. It's called EWG. There's also one called EWG Skin Deep. These will help you make the decisions as to what type of products you should be buying that are best for your needs. Take a look at the ingredient lists, household cleansers, detergents, your body wash, cosmetics, all those things, and start making the switch to cleaner products. Thirdly, let's talk about produce. The majority of the produce we buy in our grocery stores has been grown in a conventional method, which means pesticides are allowed. If you have the ability to buy organic produce, go for it. If you head over to the Environmental Working Group's website, they have something called the Clean 15 and the Dirty Dozen. The Clean 15 are products you can buy, and the amount of pesticides used to grow them is minimal compared to the Dirty Dozen. The Dirty Dozen are the most heavily pesticided crops. You can, for both organically grown and conventionally grown products, soak your produce in baking soda and water. The ratio I like to use is a teaspoon of baking soda for every two cups of water. Fill up your sink, throw in your baking soda, throw your produce in there, let it soak for 10 to 15 minutes, rinse it off, and then you're good to go. If your produce has a hard skin on the outside like an apple or a carrot, use a vegetable brush when you wash it to help get the pesticides or the wax or just the dirt off of it.

Jo Swensson 10:46

And the last thing, if you are having fertility issues or you have concerns about your bits and your private parts, I want you to look at organic cotton under Yes, I said that. Organic cotton underwear. Here's why. Organic cotton is grown without harmful chemicals, so it's going to reduce your exposure to pesticides, to phthalates, to the BPS, the BPA, and PFAS.

Jo Swensson 11:10

Hormones are not just a woman's issue. If you're a man over 35 and you feel like your energy's been shot, your belly's growing, your libido's gone, and the culprit is not age, it might just be the plastics, the PFAS, and the pesticides that you are exposed to. All of these things are backed by science. Everything I shared with you today is real. But we can fix how we're exposed and the rate in which we are exposed by making one small change at a time.

Jo Swensson 11:41

I've got a link in the description box of this episode to a free download that I made for you. It's 10 things you can do to swap out toxins and save your hormones. It's in the description box. It is also on our webpage at olivia-bell.com. There's a link there for some free resources.

Jo Swensson 12:00

If this episode hit home for you, please share it with the man in your life or somebody you think really needs to hear this. My goal is to help everybody make small, easy lifestyle changes so they can live better and healthier. And I do that through this podcast as well as through my website.

Jo Swensson 12:16

I hope you make time today for some peace, some plants and some pause.

Jo Swensson 12:20

Thank you so much for listening to Untamed and Unfiltered Wellness.