Don’t blame the water

For years we’ve been worrying that increased estrogen in our drinking water supply was coming from birth control pills - are more accurately from the residual hormones which exit the women who take birth control pills. A new study has revealed the real source of the estrogen, and you can blame it on cows.

Birth control pills count for less than 1% of the estrogens found in water. The study is published in the ACS’ journal Environmental Science & Technology. The hormones come from other supplies.

Amber Wise, Kacie O’Brien and Tracey Woodruff acknowledge the ongoing concern people have about exposure to estrogens in water supply. That exposure may be linked to fertility issues and other adverse human health conditions. With over 12 million women in the US taking birth control pills it’s an easy assumption that they are the source. However, sewage treatment plants remove virtually all of the main estrogens in birth control pills, the 17 alpha-ethinylestradiol or EE2, so where is it coming from?

It appears that EE2 doesn’t actually make much of an appearance in the drinking water. Instead naturally occurring estrogens from soy and dairy products and animal waste used untreated as farm fertilizers are largely to blame. They also note in their study that all humans excrete hormones in their urine, not just women on hormone treatment. They concluded that 90% of the estrogens come from livestock waste reaching the waterways.

The researchers stop short of recommending ways to get these farm animals to stop pooping. That will be another story.

Source: American Chemical Society, ScienceDaily