It isn’t just a woman’s problem

by Troy Hurst DC, DAAPM

Environmental estrogens are a real problem these days and if you’re not familiar with them, you should be. Environmental estrogens are synthetic substances that when absorbed into the body, function similarly to estrogen. They’re found just about everywhere and actually, they are difficult to avoid. They’re in plastics and easily leach into plastic-wrapped foods. They’re in pesticides, detergents, preservatives, carpets, and even in the air. As hormone disruptors, they cause some serious problems. Environmental estrogens are connected to everything from PMS to cancer and reproductive problems in animals – even generations after exposure. In fact, environmental estrogens have been found to change our genes and give our bodies the instructions to produce cancer.

In light of their pervasiveness and the obvious problems they create, the question becomes: How do we get environmental estrogens out of our bodies? Deep detoxification, including liver and colon cleansing, can be a large part of the answer as these methods remove considerable stores of environmental garbage from the body. But another part of the answer lies in the foods you’re consuming.

Cruciferous vegetables, including cabbage, broccoli, kale, and cauliflower, contain key compounds that help detoxify us, and specifically, they speed environmental estrogens out of our bodies. These compounds actually signal our genes to increase the production of detoxification enzymes – which jumpstarts our body’s detoxification processes. And of course, the more environmental estrogens and toxins your body can detoxify for you, the healthier you’ll be all around.

These foods also contain special compounds that change a dangerous cancer-causing form of estrogen into a benign, protective form of estrogen. In a society where most are heavy on estrogen, this is critical.

Cruciferous vegetables are so effective that many studies have found greatly reduced cancer risks by consuming them. One study showed that people eating these foods regularly have about half the risk of creating some cancers – when compared to others eating non-cruciferous vegetables. To get the benefits, these vegetables should be raw or only lightly cooked and it’s best to consume four or more servings each week.