Dear Reader,

Here’s something I’d bet you didn’t know…

Commercial produce laced with pesticides may make it harder for men to attract women.

A team of reproductive biologists at the University of Austin ran a study on sexual behavior using rats exposed to a fungicide commonly used by grape growers. One group continued to receive a normal diet without toxins. They injected the other group with the pesticide, separated the females from the males with a wire mesh barrier, and then observed them to see if they continued to mate normally.

What they found was surprising and very interesting to me: the female rats wound up being less sexually interested in males who’d been exposed—and their descendants. But their response to the healthy males remained unchanged.

The strange thing is that poisoned males and their offspring showed no difference in sexual appetite. And there wasn’t any visible damage to the reproductive systems of either group. The female rats could tell something was wrong with the exposed males, even though they couldn’t see it.

This led the researchers to the conclusion that there was something more lasting and dangerous going on. They speculated that the pesticide may have turned off or damaged the gene that helps males win females over. They speculated that the same problem may be showing up in humans.

This is just the latest in a series of studies that show just how damaging toxins in the environment can be to your sex life. We already know that there are hundreds—possibly thousands—of these “sex offender” chemicals in everything from household products to electronics, clothing, furniture, plastic bags, and even the water supply.

Your body absorbs them through the skin, so there isn’t much you can do to stop them once you’ve been exposed. They can disrupt your hormonal balance, trigger the early onset of puberty in young people, make men more feminine, increase the risk of reproductive cancers in both men and women, and even make men sterile.

What makes this study unique is we’re now learning that the extent of the damage goes further than we thought. It isn’t just a question of reproductive health. It suggests that these “enviro-toxins” can permanently alter your physiology at the genetic level. That makes the problem even harder to treat—and puts your descendants in jeopardy, since they’ll inherit your damaged genetic material.

It also means there’s a lot more at stake than sexual activity and pleasure. If people become less interested in sex, the future of entire nations may be in jeopardy, since a lot of men and women won’t find attractive partners or have children.

This may be one of the reasons why birth rates in industrialized nations have fallen dramatically over the past several decades. Women in countries where these toxins are prevalent may simply be losing interest in a large segment of the population of available men.

To take just one example, birth rates across Europe are falling fast. In Italy, demographers worry that the population could drop by a third by 2050. In Poland, the population’s decreased by half a million people over the past six years. Many of these countries are actually passing legislation to pay women to have children. Dwindling populations mean fewer working-age people to fuel the economy and take care of the elderly from prior generations.

Fortunately you can take steps to protect yourself.

Here are a few surefire ways to reduce or eliminate your exposure to these “gender-bending” chemicals:

• Try to limit your diet to minimally processed foods—especially meats, which tend to accumulate a lot of pesticides and other dangerous toxins. Free-range organic chickens and grass-fed beef are free of most toxins. Wild-caught fish are safe, although some larger fish contain pesticides and heavy metals like mercury. Avoid all “farm-raised” fish, as these are heavily exposed to pesticides. Deep-sea fish like cod, halibut, mackerel, and sardines are your best bet. For a great source of meat products derived from animals raised the way Nature intended, click HERE.

• If you don’t have access to organic meats, trim the fat off anything you bring home from your local grocery store. Many of the worst chemicals are stored in the fat of the animal.

• Same goes for fruits and vegetables. If there aren’t any organic options near you, wash all produce thoroughly and consider removing the peels from certain fruits, like apples, since a lot of the toxins are stored here.

• Buy household products made from natural ingredients and free from synthetic industrial compounds. These are widely available in stores and on line.

• Get a high-quality water filter. Pesticides find their way into many municipal water systems.

Incidentally, if you’re still skeptical, reconsider this: one group of government experts estimated that the average American is carrying around 700 chemicals in their bodies. And the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention screened 2,500 Americans for 148 different chemicals known to cause cancer, disrupt hormonal balance, and inflict lasting nerve damage. They found amounts of all of them in the bloodstreams of everyone tested.

Bottom line: stick to foods and products derived from Nature.

To Your Good Health,

Al Sears, MD

1 Crews et al. “Transgenerational epigenetic imprints on mate preference.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 2007. 104(14):5942-5946.

2 BBC News. “The EU’s baby blues: Birth rates in the European Union are falling fast.” March 27, 2007. See news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4768644.stm