EESA10H3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Persistent Organic Pollutant, Distillation, Mirex
13 May 2011
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our bodies produce hormones from endocrine glands. some chemicals are able to mimic hormones because they are similar in chemistry and structure etc. when these chemicals enter our body, our body isn"t able to differentiate whether it is a hormone or a foreign chemical; thus the chemical ends up disrupting the endocrine functions of the hormone it is mimicking. **note: the data collected with regards to this matter is mostly from animal studies, not much from human exposure: direct effects: changes in the level of produced proteins (unwanted proteins are increased/formed) If we, as adults are exposed to chemicals/endocrine disrupters, we"ll be able to recover; we can cope quite well. on the other hand, babies would be born with many defects if exposed to chemicals in the womb, because fetuses are very sensitive to these substances: synthetic estrogen used by physicians to prevent spontaneous abortion (1948-
