We ought to have concerns about consuming recycled sewerage drinking water that comes from water-reclamation plants. Are there standards for how much synthetic estrogen and other hormones can be released in sewage and wastewater, and do treatment plants generally monitor for it?

It’s one thing to use recycled water for non-drinking purposes such as irrigation and flushing of toilets, quite another for the masses to be drinking it.

Endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) are man-made synthetic chemicals that interfere with the endocrine systems of humans and animals by mimicking, blocking and/or interfering in some manner with the natural instructions of hormones to cells. The resulting disruption creates many problems with physical development, sex, reproduction, brain development, behavior, temperature regulation and more.

Known EDCs that can be found in wastewaters and the environment include the estradiol compounds commonly found in the contraceptive pill, phytoestrogens, pesticides, industrial chemicals such as Bisphenol A and nonyl Phenol, and heavy metals (Lintelmann et al. 2003).

While EDCs are present in untreated sewage effluent in concentrations much lower than natural hormones within the body and many have endocrine capabilities than are up to several thousand times less than natural hormones. Secondary treatment of sewage effluent is recognised to remove the majority of these chemicals from the effluent (Staples 1998, Wang et al. 2003).

While the health impacts for humans is considered low to negligible due to the very low concentrations in treated effluent, it has been demonstrated that wildlife that are in constant or near constant contact with water receiving treated effluent and other EDC-containing waters (eg, alligators in Florida and riverine fish in the UK) can be impacted (Guillette et al. 1994, Jobling et al 1998). The Floridian alligators were found to suffer from problems relating to the size and development of male gonads in Juvenile male alligators which was related to the presence of estrogenic-like compounds in the Florida everglades (Guillette et al. 1994). Joblin et al. (1998) observed that there was in increase in intersexuality of riverine fish which was linked to the presence of EDCs in UK water ways.

The research by scientists at the Battelle Marine Sciences Laboratory in Sequim focus on trout, which is related to salmon, and for looking at reproductive effects on adult fish rather than juveniles. How fish are affected by such chemicals in the wild remains unclear. “It’s something we’re concerned about,” said Irvin Schultz, a senior research scientist at the lab. In the experiment, adult trout in caged pens were exposed to ethynylestradiol, a synthetic estrogen. After two months of exposure, the fish were spawned with a healthy female. Researchers discovered that the exposed trout were half as fertile as fish kept in clean water.

Right now, the ecological effects of chronic low-level exposure to many EDCs are unknown. Many of these chemicals are washed down our drains and toilets, and much of that is coming from the urine of pharmaceutical users. From there, many compounds are passing through wastewater treatment plants and into rivers, lakes and aquifers, many of which serve as public drinking sources.

While treatment plants are equipped to remove most solid waste and many chemicals before wastewater is released into surface water, they are not equipped to remove them all.

Among the contaminants that are not easily removed are antibiotics, antidepressants, and estrogen replacementt drugs. More than eight million women in the United States take estrogen replacement drugs to treat the symptoms of menopause and osteoporosis. Synthetic estrogen is a common ingredient in oral contraceptives. So what happens when estrogen is consumed, flushed down the toilet as urine, and then not filtered out in the wastewater treatment facility? As wastewater becomes “usable” again, as it seeps into the ground and is eventually assimilated into groundwater, this useable water may have significant levels of estrogen (and a variety of other chemicals).

We have good reason to be wary of exposure to foreign estrogens. Breast cancer is a major health issue. It is the most common cancer-related cause of death in women in Australia. One in twelve Australian women will develop the disease and each year many women die from it. We are now learning that many of these cancers are all known to be a result of hormonal imbalances. Specifically they are a result of excess estrogen or estrogen dominance. According to Dr Cavalieri, Professor at the Eppley Institute for Research in Cancer and Allied Diseases at the University of Nebraska Medical Centre in Omaha Nebraska, he and his team are at the brink of discovering that almost all the important human cancers that we get in Western civilization, have the same origin, which is estrogen. Estrogens, according to Dr Cavalieri, are initiators and promoters of cancer. The initiation of normal cells turning into cancer cells is the same for both the breast or uterus and the prostate gland. In these organs, cancer initiation is due primarily to estrogen dominance combined with lifestyle factors and/or toxic insults that predispose estrogen to become oxidised. Researcher Dr Heather Chapman from the Cooperative Research Centre for Water Quality and Treatment writes, “We have demonstrated through our research that conventional wastewater treatment processes used in Australia remove 95-99% of hormones. Any remaining traces are removed by the advanced treatment processes, such as reverse osmosis, that are used in water recycling schemes” she said. Reverse osmosis is also used to produce the extremely high quality water required in industry. The University of NSW report, commissioned by the Local Government Association of Queensland, reviewed recycled drinking water in the US and Singapore, as Queenslanders consider their views before a referendum in March 2007.

Despite concerns about the possibility of recycled water exposing human beings to high concentrations of hormones, they said southeast Queensland studies had shown estrogenic hormones were at concentrations too low to be measured after conventional sewage treatment. And advanced purification processes, such as reverse osmosis membrane treatment and advanced oxidation, were all highly effective in removing any remaining hormonal steroids.

Nevertheless, the report said a comprehensive health assessment was necessary before any Australian scheme went ahead. Frederick vom Saal, a biologist and professor at the University of Missouri-Columbia, has been studying fetal development since the mid-1970s. He discovered vanishingly small amounts of free estrogen are capable of altering the course of development in the womb – as little as one-tenth of a part per trillion. Given this exquisite sensitivity, even small amounts of a weak estrogen mimic – a chemical that is one thousand times less potent than the estradiol made by the body itself – may nevertheless spell big trouble! Howard Bern, a comparative endocrinologist at the University of California at Berkeley and a major figure in experimental DES research, has explored the effects of weak estrogens found that in experiments with mice that so-called weak estrogens seem to have a far more potent effect on the unborn than on exposed adults. What happens in adults, he stresses, is no basis for predicting what these chemicals can do to the unborn.

In truth, no one yet knows how much it takes of these synthetic hormone-disrupting chemicals to pose a hazard to humans. All evidence suggests that it may take very little if the exposure occurs before birth. Catherine Rollins is Founder & CEO of the www.Natural-Progesterone-Advisory-Network.com website; a no-nonsense, non-medical exploration of women's experiences using bioidentical progesterone successfully for over a decade; developed to bridge the gap in education between female healthcare consumers and their treating physicians. Catherine has made educating women on the safe and effective use of bioidentical progesterone her passionate cause.