[Mini] Understanding EDCs' Impact on Menstrual Health | Ep. 63

Could your menstrual health be influenced by everyday chemicals? Join me, Bridget Walton, as we explore the critical impact of endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) on our menstrual cycles. You'll gain valuable insights into how these sneaky chemicals mimic estrogen and wreak havoc on our endocrine system, leading to symptoms like heavy bleeding, period pain, PMS, and more. Discover the common culprits lurking in plastics and printed receipts and learn practical strategies to shield yourself from these disruptors, including a simple switch to menstrual discs made from medical-grade silicone.

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Chapters

• 0:04 Endocrine Disruptors and Menstrual Health
• 9:15 Connecting and Sharing Health Information

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:04

Hello and welcome to this week's episode of I'm Hormonal. I'm your host, bridget Walton, and for this mini episode today I'm going to be talking about endocrine disrupting chemicals and how they can impact your cycle. If you listened to this week's episode that came out on Tuesday, you will have heard the much longer version of this conversation that I had with Jessica Franklin. We talked all about endocrine disrupting chemicals and what they mean. She really got into some of the details there, so check that out if you haven't already, if you want that longer form conversation. In this mini, though, I will cover what endocrine disruptors can look like, or rather what your cycle can look like if you have a lot of endocrine disruptors can look like, or rather what your cycle can look like if you have a lot of endocrine disruptor exposure. We'll talk about what symptoms could present and, of course, as always, remember that the information I share with you here is for educational purposes only and it's not a replacement for medical advice or a diagnosis. All right, let's jump in.

Speaker 1: 1:06

What is an endocrine disruptor? You'll hear me sometimes say endocrine disruptor, endocrine disrupting chemical or EDC. It's all the same thing. We use it interchangeably. It is a chemical, whether it's man-made or found in nature that can impact our endocrine system, and our endocrine system is our system that consists of all of our hormones. So, namely, when we look at estrogens right, estrogens are the hormone, is the hormone that's impacted really heavily by endocrine disruptors, because these chemicals can either mimic estrogen, they can disrupt the normal, like they can disrupt estrogen receptors too, and so, namely, what they're doing is making our body think that we have higher levels of estrogen than what we actually have circulating, higher levels of estrogen than what we actually have circulating. Now. We need estrogen. Totally. There's a balance there, for sure, and so, if you have high estrogen symptoms sometimes that can look like heavy bleeding, could be period pain, pms, fatigue, maybe you have headaches around your cycle, trouble with sleep or tender breasts those are some of the main symptoms and oftentimes, which are experienced in the luteal phase or in that 7 to 10 day window before your next period starts.

Speaker 1: 2:40

So, when we eat or you might be familiar with soy that soy has some phytoestrogens in it, and so it's not inherently a bad thing, right, it's okay, we can eat soy or flaxseed or other plants that have some of these phytoestrogens in there, but we get a lot of exposure through plastics or other xenoestrogens. So I said phytoestrogens, now we're also talking about xenoestrogens, which are the chemical, man-made ones A lot that are used in plastics, like I mentioned, and that are manufactured from petroleum or other sources like that, or just straight up chemicals. There is no right. There's no form of like plastics found in nature. That's why they don't biodegrade and that's why they last forever.

Speaker 1: 3:34

So, coming back to the symptoms that you could experience, these symptoms of high estrogen which, yes, if you're thinking well, we can also have high estrogen. Just from what? If we're drinking a lot of alcohol, if our liver is kind of burdened getting that alcohol out, so it's not prioritizing or doesn't have the capacity essentially to focus on filtering out our estrogen metabolites. You're right, like many things in health, the acute high or even relatively high estrogen isn't fundamentally a problem. But when it's something that is recurring, like cycle after cycle after cycle, estrogen levels are higher than what they should be, that can impact your health. You know I'm interested in doing a longer conversation about breast cancer I've got somebody in mind, so hopefully I'll bring that to you sometime soon about how estrogens and our hormones. You know, what can we do now to especially make sure that we're taking care of our health in order to avoid cancers.

Speaker 1: 4:46

It's also worth mentioning and you may have heard me say this before if you've been here before but especially during pregnancy, when what's coming into contact with your skin, what you're ingesting, what you're breathing, those chemicals can also be impacting the baby that you're growing right. So if you have, for example, exposure to BPA, which is through plastics or through the like receipts that are printed like at the grocery store I forget what it's called, but where it's just using the heat to print it, those generally have BPA on them, and so when that's in your system, that can also cause irregularities in your child's reproductive system because it's interacting with their estrogen receptors as well. So there are a billion places that you can start, and you'll hear about half of them in the episode that I did with Jessica. But I hope you look at that as something that is more inspiring than overwhelming, because, living on planet Earth in 2024, it's almost 2025, we're going to be interacting with endocrine disrupting chemicals for sure. It's just what makes sense for you and your life, your budget, your family's activities, so that you can minimize that exposure.

Speaker 1: 6:09

Let's look real quick at three changes I want to suggest for you, as a starting point, something to think about. The first one I like to suggest is switching from the menstrual products that you might be using now to using a menstrual disc. So the menstrual discs are made of medical grade silicone. They don't have any of those icky chemicals in them. It's also really great for your wallet, like if you've listened to this podcast again. Sorry, you've heard this probably 12 times now. Hopefully you've bought your Nixit menstrual disc by this point. I'll put a link in the show notes so that you can check it out if you want to investigate. This is the menstrual disc that I use. It makes my life easier and it prevents me from coming into contact with disruptors that are on these like bleached sort of cottons, or a lot of tampons are even just made of plastics and pads. Right, it's all manufactured materials. So keeping those away from the most sensitive parts of your body is that's at least kind of a high priority for me. Would recommend for you Give it a whirl.

Speaker 1: 7:20

The second thing I'm thinking here is about air filters. Now I'm in my home a lot. I work here, I obviously live here, I sleep here, and so I'm really trying to think of okay, well, what is the air quality like in my home? I actually just invested in another air purifiers because I have one in my room and I just bought one for my downstairs area because I'm we are exposed to so many different things through the air, and so that's why I really wanted to say, okay, let me invest in this, get a quality one, especially if you're listening to this episode in real time. Black Friday is creeping up on us, but maybe that's something you've been thinking about. Maybe this will be a good little nudge for you to go ahead and grab that.

Speaker 1: 8:11

The third and final suggestion I have for you is just like keep all plastic away from your food and really scrutinize whether or not you want to eat food that is coming to you in plastic. This will naturally lend towards a more plant-based whole food style of eating. I said plant-based, but I really meant whole food. Like just getting the raw ingredient and then making food from that. Not getting ultra processed or processed foods, because those can have other chemicals of their own, certainly. So really avoiding heating up any food in plastic, because the chemicals from that plastic can leach into your food, gross, and when it comes to storage containers. Maybe next time you make a run to Costco, check out the glass storage containers that they've got, or wherever it is even really at Goodwill at your favorite resale shop. I'm sure that they will be full of great options.

Speaker 1: 9:15

I'm going to wrap it up here for today's mini episode. If you have someone in mind you think might like this information too, I would be super appreciative if you would send this on over to them. Otherwise, if you ever have a request for something you want to hear me talk about a question that you have just about yourself, you want to ask me talk about a question that you have just about yourself, you want to ask me. You can always connect with me on Instagram, at Bridget Walton, and just shoot me a DM. I would love to connect with you. All right, that's it for today. Thank you again. I'll be back next week with another great interview. I can't wait for you to hear it.