Did you know that more than 80,000 chemicals circulate throughout the United States each day? You can find them in all kinds of items, such as furniture, personal care objects, cookware, food, cleaning products, and drinking water. Another place is in beauty products.
As we’ve talked before about how damaging toxic beauty products are for your skin, we haven’t talked about how bad they are for your endocrine system (aka your hormones).
Your Body’s Endocrine System
We won’t bore you with all the specifics, but the endocrine system is composed of glands that produce and secrete hormones. Now, we all know how important hormones are in our bodies. They control respiration, metabolism, reproduction, sensory perception, movement, sexual development, and growth. That’s pretty important stuff! The endocrine system works hard to regulate your hormones, which means that growth and development can be a little tricky if it’s not working correctly.
How Chemicals Affect Growth and Development
So, if you’re wondering what could deregulate your hormones, those would be called endocrine disruptors, such as phthalates, parabens, and phenols. These disruptors are found in color cosmetics, fragrances, body washes, lotions, hair products, and nail polish. They can wreak havoc on your hormones, possibly causing early puberty, reproductive issues, cancerous tumors, birth defects, and other developmental disorders. Research has even indicated that endocrine disruptors pose the greatest risk through prenatal and early postnatal development.
In a human reproduction study by the University of California, researchers monitored phthalates, parabens, and phenols by using urine tests. The results indicated that for every doubling of the concentration measured in pregnant women’s urine, their daughters went through puberty on average a month earlier. While this might not seem like a big deal, in the last few decades, puberty has been starting earlier and earlier in young girls. The culprit? Disruptors.
Eliminating Everyday Chemicals With 10+ Free Life Products
While it’s impossible to protect you and your family (present and future) from all the harmful environmental chemicals we encounter each day, we can have a hand in eliminating some of them. At 10+ Free Life, we produce products that remove toxic chemicals from our lives, the earth, and especially our bodies. After all, we only get one of them!